


Lemon Blood

by ParadiseAvenger



Series: Lemon Collections [1]
Category: Vampire Knight
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Incest Kink, Lemons, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 14:56:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadiseAvenger/pseuds/ParadiseAvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anything you want or imagine... any fantasy you have... any desire that wakes you in the night, panting and sweaty... can be found in the Blood of Lemons, but only for a price. A collection of one-shot citrus for ZERO and YUUKI. Canon, fluff, AU. Requests welcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thoughts of Death

For Aoionette. Bitter.

Summary: Zero hadn’t seen Yuuki in over a year. What would be enough to bring her back?

X X X

Kiryu Zero realized on the mortician’s slab that he thought about death far too much. He also hated to admit that the Level E had gotten the better of him and put him in this state. When a woman passing by had seen a bloodied young man in Cross Academy’s trademark black-and-white uniform, she had immediately called for an ambulance. And, being a vampire and also having lost a lot of blood, Zero’s heart had temporarily stopped beating so the EMTs pronounced him dead and now he was in the morgue on a cold slab waiting to be outfitted for a coffin and a tombstone. But, being a vampire, once his healing abilities came back into play and his body began to heal, his heart started beating again and he woke up rather confused and very aware of how much he thought about death.

Lying there, naked, the epiphany struck him like a solid shot by the anti-vampire Bloody Rose gun he always carried but was now probably boxed up somewhere and labeled with ‘Personal Effects to be Collected by the Next of Kin.’ 

His whole world since Yuuki left was nothing but death. 

During the night, he guarded the students of the Day Class from death at the Night Class’s hands. By day, he hunted Level Es in the city and thought about hunting down the pureblood vampires. When he slept, he dreamed about Hiou Shizuka killing his family or about devouring Ichiru’s essence or about Yuuki. Sometimes, he even thought about taking his own life—thought about how easy it would be since he carried a gun on his person day in and day out.

Death.

Death.

Death.

It was always death. 

Maybe he should think about changing his name to the Grim Reaper, Kiryu Zero. Surely there was an anti-vampire scythe out there somewhere. Yuuki’s Artemis Rod had turned into a scythe under her vampire influence. Maybe he should start using that rather than his gun and live up to his daily thoughts about death.

The coroner was puttering around the morgue, humming some classical score to himself. His life was also death, Zero realized. Maybe there was something inherently wrong with both of them. Life shouldn’t really be about death. 

Death was what came at the end when everything else was over.

Zero nearly laughed out loud at that thought, but stifled it because he didn’t want to scare the daylights out of the coroner. (Dead people on the slab aren’t supposed to laugh, after all. They’re supposed to just lay there and be dead.) He was a vampire—for all intents and purposes, he was already dead and yet he was still living. Death would have to come for Kiryu Zero twice. Actually, since he had just died for a second time, the Reaper would probably have to come a third time. But with Zero’s luck, he would live forever, always just out of the reach of death.

The coroner was beginning to get his tools of the trade set up in the stand beside the slab Zero was lying on. Zero didn’t want to give the guy a heart attack, but he’d have to get out of here before the coroner started cutting on him. Cross Kaien would surely have gotten a call and was probably on his way here now to save his ‘cute student’ or in this case his ‘adopted son,’ but Zero would have to take matters into his own hands if the headmaster didn’t get here soon.

The phone rang.

The coroner stopped his humming and went to answer it. “The John Doe? Yeah, I’ve got him on the slab. What? Someone’s here to take a look at him. Okay, I’ll meet him in the hallway. Yeah, okay. Bye.” He finished up his conversation, peeled off his rubber gloves, and left the morgue.

Zero sat up immediately and looked around. There were three windows in the morgue with frosted glass and easy-to-open interior latches. It was the perfect escape route for the living-dead vampire-hunter-turned-vampire to leave by. Since Zero was a little naked with no idea where his clothes were, he snagged the coroner’s lab coat from the back of his chair, scrambled out the window, and was gone. He was certain the coroner was going to be scratching his head over this one for a long time to come. Dead bodies don’t just walk out of the morgue, not even in cheap zombie movies.

On the street outside the hospital, dusk was falling and it was chilly. Zero was certain he was conspicuous in his bare feet and stolen lab coat, but he tried to pretend he belonged there. It wasn’t hard to get people to mind their own business with a simple glower and cold stare. 

He was halfway to the Academy when he smelled the unmistakable nostalgic scent.

Zero froze in his tracks, looking around for the source and squeezing the lab coat shut over his naked body with one hand. For a long moment, he didn’t seen anything and he almost thought he had imagined it after his near-death experience, but then he caught a glimpse of long chocolate-brown hair just as the young woman turned the corner.

He knew it was her. 

It couldn’t be anyone else, it just couldn’t.

Kuran née Cross Yuuki—his childhood friend, his closest ally, his first and last love, and his mortal enemy.

But what was she doing here?

Didn’t she remember that he had promised to kill her the next time they met? Maybe she, like him, was tired of her life being nothing but death. Maybe, she was ready to die. No, that couldn’t be it! Not Yuuki. Yuuki loved life… at least, she had when she had been human…

Zero hustled and caught up with her in the alley. Her scent was stronger here. He could smell her blood singing in her veins and hear her heartbeat even though she was dead like him. He grabbed her wrist tightly, spinning her to face him.

A small yelp of surprise escaped her as she looked up into his face. Her chocolate eyes were glistening with unshed tears, the pulse in her throat hammering, her lips slightly chapped, her long hair tangled and stringy, but god, she was so beautiful. In his cold hand, her skin was warm and painfully alive. Was he the only vampire that was truly dead? Maybe he was just dead inside…

“What are you doing here?” he demanded of her, his fingers digging into her flesh.

She moaned in half-realized pain. God, she had missed his touch. The feeling of his skin now lit her blood on fire from the inside out.

“Well?” Zero snapped.

Yuuki’s eyes strayed over his body. Maybe she was looking for his anti-vampire gun, trying to decipher whether or not her life was in danger. Didn’t she know he wouldn’t need a gun to kill her? Her body was so thin and small he could break her like a twig. It turned out to be none of those things, though. Slowly, with his eyes fastened on her every move, she slipped her hands within the top of his stolen lab coat and laid her hands on the naked curve of his ribs. Her fingers fit perfectly into each hollow groove.

“So thin, Zero,” she breathed out. “Are you starving yourself to death again?”

There it was again. That word, as if he couldn’t escape it—death.

It was always death.

He yanked away from her and growled out, now holding the white lab coat closed with both hands. “What are you doing here?” he demanded again. It wasn’t fair that she could just come back into his life and disrupt all the walls he had so carefully built around himself.

“The chairman called me,” Yuuki said. “He said that you might be dead.”

“I am,” Zero snapped at her.

Her lips pulled in a pained smile. “Aren’t we all?”

He stared at her, dumbstruck. This wasn’t the Yuuki who had left over a year ago. She had become a living-dead pureblood vampire, but deep inside, even he could still see the human Yuuki’s cheerfulness and care. Something in Yuuki was dead, just like something inside of him was dead. 

“I’ll go,” she said to him. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.” And then, she turned to leave him once again.

It was animal impulse or maybe something just a little bit deeper that made him desperately grab her wrist and pull her back to him once more. Her body fell into him as if this was all she had wanted and she wrapped her arms around him tightly. Zero held her tightly, uncaring of all the death and pain twisted up in both their lives. In his arms, she was warm and so alive and he could feel his own heart beating a mile a minute that he couldn’t even believe that both of them were really dead.

“I missed you, Zero,” she sobbed into his chest. “When I thought you were dead, I just… I couldn’t go on. I had to see you. I had to come.”

He squeezed her to him, burying his face in her thick hair. Her scent, even mingled with the pureblood of a Kuran, was so wistful that it nearly broke his heart. This was it… this was why his life was death. He couldn’t live without her. “Yuuki…” he breathed.

Then, he gently pushed her back so he could look into her face. She was so beautiful, even with her eyes red-rimmed from crying and her face streaked with tears. She was perfect to him, no matter what she had become or what she ever did. Yuuki was still Yuuki, his everything.

Zero dipped his head and kissed her. 

For a moment, she feared that she would push him away. She was supposed to be engaged to that pureblood prince, Kuran Kaname, and Zero knew she loved that bastard deep inside her secret heart. But she didn’t. Instead, her fingers twined through his silver-white hair and pulled him closer, her tongue darting out hotly to lick his lower lip. He opened his mouth to her, his own tongue darting out to meet hers. It was sloppy, it was careless, it was something both of them completely poured their hearts into. Truthfully, it was their first kiss all over again, but this time… Yuuki’s confusion was gone. The first time they had kissed, Zero could taste her insecurity. Yes, she cared for him, but she cared for Kaname too. Now, that confusion was gone. He didn’t dare think what that meant.

As if she could read his mind, she whispered, “It’s you, Zero.”

He enveloped her inside his arms, pulling her so tightly to him it was as if he wanted her to live inside his skin with him. His kiss became powerful and wild, his feelings pouring into her through their connection. She pressed her hands to his chest and forced him back a little, panting.

“Let’s get out of the alley,” she said. “We can,” she blushed, “continue this at the Academy.” 

“I don’t care who sees,” he said, his voice raspy.

She huddled into his chest, her face burning. “I know, but… I want my first time to be in a bed.”

Zero’s heart skipped a beat. “But you’ve been with Kuran for over a—”

She was shaking her head. “I haven’t… I,” she hesitated. “I couldn’t.”

A small part of Zero swelled with pride and happiness. “Were you… waiting?”

“In a way, I suppose,” she confessed.

He kissed her again, but didn’t deepen it. Then, he took her warm small hand and together, they walked back to the Academy. The chairman, like the coroner, was probably back at the hospital, scratching his head wondering where Zero had gotten off to butt-naked and without his gun, but Zero hardly cared. Life wasn’t about death anymore. It was about Yuuki.

…

Zero’s room hadn’t changed at all in the year Yuuki had been gone from his life. She swore that the same dirty white shirt as even still crumpled in the corner waiting for laundry day, but that was probably unlikely. Zero wasn’t that much of a slob. He closed the door behind them, crossed his room in the dark, and switched on the bedside lamp. Warm amber light filled the room and played on the planes of Yuuki’s face and hung in Zero’s pale amethyst eyes. 

Now that they were here, together like this, it seemed awkward. They were childhood friends and each had caught a glimpse of the other naked at one time or another, but this… As they stood there, looking at each other, it became obvious that this would be more than a fling to both of them. They had each put each other through hell and should have turned away, but they couldn’t. They were just too close, too precious, too much of everything to each other.

Zero wrapped Yuuki in his arms and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “No pressure,” he whispered. “I could always work one out for myself.”

“You’ve always let me do whatever I want to you, Zero,” Yuuki sniffled out. “Can’t you be selfish? Just this once?”

He pulled back to look at her and smiled softly. “I don’t think I have it in me. I… I love you too much.”

Yuuki’s heart skipped a beat, her coffee-colored eyes widening as she stared at Zero. He held her gaze, his heart throbbing with worry. This was it—the moment of truth—when she either rejected him or accepted his feelings as a whole. Tears welled up in her eyes, rolling slowly down her pale cheeks.

He shushed her. “Don’t cry, Yuuki,” he breathed. “Please, don’t.”

“Zero, you… how long?”

“Forever,” he confessed. “Since the day I met you.”

She sobbed. “I never knew… All this time, I’ve been… with Kaname and you’ve been here…”

He stroked her hair, waiting for her to cry herself out. But Yuuki stopped crying sooner than he thought and pulled back to look into his face. She didn’t speak, just rose onto the balls of her feet to kiss him and her hands traveled down his body. Since he was still naked beneath the white lab coat, it wasn’t long before she could feel his arousal pressing against her stomach and slipped her hand into the coat to grasp him tightly. He was warm and slightly sticky in her hand. Experimentally, she stroked him, rolling her fingertips over the mushroomed head.

Zero groaned into her mouth and covered her hand with his, guiding her pace and tightening her grip. Yuuki stroked him, feeling his strong body tremble and turn to putty in her hands. She had never realized just how much power she had over him. The feared Kiryu Zero… he was all hers. 

“Stop, Yuuki,” he gasped suddenly and forced her hand to stop. “I’m going to…”

She kissed him, pushing her tongue past his teeth. His fangs pricked at her and then retracted. He didn’t want to hurt her anymore, ever again. Hell, he had never wanted to hurt her the first time. Yuuki coiled her arm around his waist, guiding them both towards his bed. She fell back on it, pulling him down on top of her. Naked and warm, Zero pressed against her clothed body and she purred at the heat of him. He felt so alive and it felt like an eternity since she had last been warm.

He rolled up her long-sleeved shirt and his hips fit perfectly between her thighs, his hardness bumping the soaked crotch of her panties. She moaned, grinding down against him. Swiftly, Zero undressed her, having spent most of his childhood watching her dress and undress in their shared bathroom. He struggled with her bra a moment until she guided his fingers to the clasp in the front, giggling while he cursed. Then, to prevent her from laughing anymore at his expense, he kissed her deeply and cupped her naked sex.

She gasped out his name, kissing him in a state of desperation as he slipped one finger into her drenched folds and rolled his thumb across her clit. It turned out, he had just as much power over her as she did over his. The pureblood princess, Kuran Yuuki, was nothing but a puddle of girly-goo in Zero’s arms. 

She wrapped her legs around his hips, insistently pulling him towards her. She was a virgin, but she had experimented plenty on her own and she was ready, but she wasn’t sure Zero knew that. Sometimes, or at least in romance novels and movies, boys needed a little direction. She gripped him when he seemed a little lost and positioned him at her entrance. There, he pushed in a little, watching her face as her small body stretched to accommodate him.

“Just… put it in,” she gasped.

With a quick thrust of his hips, he sheathed himself inside her and she moaned in bliss. There was only a little bit of pain, mostly pleasure at her body was filled to the brim. Zero remained still, overwhelmed by the warmth and tightness of her. It was nothing like his hand and he wasn’t sure how long he could last. 

“Yuuki,” he whispered.

“Move,” she begged him.

She didn’t need to tell him twice. Each thrust brought a nameless grunt of pleasure from her mouth and as he moved faster, harder, and deeper, all the words she seemed to know turned into some semblance of his name. Her nails dug into his shoulders and she dug her heels into his ass. Zero couldn’t hold out—it all felt too good and it was over way too soon. He collapsed beside her on the bed, panting, and Yuuki burrowed into his arms with a content sigh.

“Yuuki,” he whispered. “If you weren’t pleased, I’m sorry.” 

She pressed a kiss to his lips. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m happy. I got to be with you.”

He smiled softly, pressing his forehead to hers. “You’re too good to me.”

“Hey Zero?” Yuuki whispered.

“Hmm?”

“You can make it up to me.”

He perked, his amethyst eyes shining in the darkness. “How?”

“Tell me you love me again.”

Zero brushed his nose against hers. “I love you, Yuuki.”

Tears swelled on her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. “Thank god,” she breathed out. “Thank god.” Then, she snuggled against his naked chest, breathing in the   
mingled scent of Zero’s skin and the chemicals of the morgue. Warm and happy for the first time in over a year, Yuuki fell asleep in Zero’s arms.

This was all he had ever wanted, Zero realized. Holding Yuuki in his arms, all the thoughts of death left him. In fact, thoughts of life filled his mind instead. They hadn’t used protection. What if a child, a new life, was growing inside Yuuki now as she slept? He smiled faintly and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re my life, Yuuki,” he whispered.

She smiled in her sleep, murmuring his name.

X X X

Once again, I tell everyone, suggestions welcome in Private Messages ONLY. If you leave on in a review, you risk me completely forgetting that it exists.  
I love the way the beginning of this came out with Zero being in the morgue and thinking about death and all that funny stuff. It was great fun to write! Clearly I’ve been watching a few too many episodes of CSI in my spare time… Oh well.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	2. The Bodyguard

I just finished watching “The Bodyguard” with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. A little more inspiration…

Summary: Kiryuu Zero is assigned the job of protecting the singer and actress, Kuran Yuuki, but he’s not so sure he can guard her body from himself.

X X X

Kuran Yuuki knew about the messages and the threats. But even so, at first, she thought having a bodyguard was a waste and a little bit foolish, but her big brother insisted and who was she to deny him. Deep down, she was sure Kaname only had her best interests at heart and he probably did, but still… She glanced at the bodyguard from the corner of her eye as she brushed a pale pink blush over her cheekbones at her dressing table. 

She wasn’t sure what exactly she was supposed to do with her new bodyguard.

Kiryuu Zero was always around her, almost like a displaced shadow. Even now, he had tucked himself into the corner of her dressing room, his pale amethyst eyes darting from the single window to the single door and back again. Sometimes, when he sensed something Yuuki didn’t, his hand slipped within his jacket to grip a gun that was surely holstered to his side. 

Yuuki was almost afraid that Kaname had chosen a trigger-happy guardian for her and the moment someone came through the door, threat or not, this man was going to blow them away.

She turned back to her own reflection in the mirror, occasionally glancing at Zero again. He was like a statue, the only moving parts on him were his eyes and his trigger hand. He was really quite handsome with his hair the color of spun-silver floss, those pale lilac orbs fringed with snowy lashes so long they shadowed his face, and his porcelain-pale skin. His body was perfectly shaped and sculpted with strong broad shoulders, long-fingered hands, lean corded muscles, and long legs to come to her aid in seconds.

Yuuki didn’t understand why Kaname had allowed such a beautiful man, one her age none the less, to be so close to his treasured sister. Kaname was always on guard for boys who wanted her for her money and body. For him to hire lovely Zero, well, he must be the best bodyguard in the business—better even than a team of them.

There was a light knock on the door, but Zero didn’t reach for his gun. Seconds later, one of the stage hands stuck her head into Yuuki’s dressing room. “Miss Kuran, you’re on in five.”

Yuuki flashed a winning smile. “Thank you,” she said.

“Do you need help?” the woman asked, glancing nervously at Zero who was still standing in the corner like a shadow.

“I’m fine,” Yuuki said. “It’ll just take me a minute to finish everything.”

The woman glanced at her watch, perfectly timed to the clock. “Four minutes, twenty-six seconds.”

Yuuki turned back to the vanity mirror, deftly spun her long chocolate tresses around her fingers, and pinned back the front of her hair with a few pearl combs to match her dress. She put a final touch of lipstick on her mouth, stepped back to look at herself in the full-length mirror, and deemed herself ready. She turned to gesture at Zero, to tell him that she was going on, but she turned to find him already standing right behind her. His warm hand lightly ghosted across the small of her back, guiding her. 

She spotted a large fruitlike wound at the center of his chest where his shirt was unbuttoned. It looked almost like… a gunshot wound. Maybe this was why Kaname had hired him. Yuuki had had bodyguards before, but none like Kiryuu Zero. He was vigilant, he was cautious, and he was ready to put his life on the line.

“On in three… two…”

Yuuki stepped onto the stage, her face transforming into a wide smile and she lifted her arms to wave tot eh crowd spread out below her. The microphone was waiting for her, a spotlight following her progress, and she couldn’t move very quickly in heels. She was an easy target, but she didn’t feel afraid. She could feel Zero’s eyes on her, watching her, watching the crowd, watching everything.

She was safe.

As expected, the concert went without a hitch. A few fans jumped onto the stage to dance with her and Zero was at her back within seconds, those pale eyes flashing from person to person. She waved him back—they were only fans, after all—and allowed the concert’s security to wrestle them off the stage. Then, the concert was over and Zero ushered her through the throng of screaming fans to the waiting limo and even went so far as to fasten her seatbelt for her. But he did it all so fast that she hardly noticed. Then, he was in the front passenger seat and the chauffer was heading back to the Kuran mansion.

The mansion looked beautiful and calm when the limo slid to a stop at the front doors. Yuuki smiled at the sight of the beautiful house she shared with her brother. Both their parents were dead and had been for as long as Yuuki could remember. All she had was Kaname, but he was enough.

Zero stepped from the limousine but didn’t immediately open Yuuki’s door. He stood there, his pale amethyst eyes on the brightly-lit mansion. Yuuki opened her own door and swung her legs out, preparing to step from the vehicle.

That was when it happened. 

Kaname’s voice echoed through the silent stillness of the night, panic in his throat. “Yuuki! Run!”

Yuuki saw the flash of something and then the window beside her head exploded in a shower of glass. She might have screamed, she couldn’t remember.

“Go!” Zero shouted. 

Yuuki was suddenly wrapped in the scent of his clothes and skin. Guarding her with his body, he pushed her back into the safety of the limo and slammed the door. The limo leaped away from the house, gas surging through the engine. The last thing Yuuki saw was Zero’s back as he sprinted into the mansion. One of the windows shattered and she saw a dark shape fall. Silently, she sent up a prayer. ‘Please… please, let everyone be alright.’

…

Everything seemed to go very quickly after that though Yuuki supposed it must have lasted a few hours at least.

The next thing she knew, Zero was calling the limo on its car phone and telling them to come back, that everything was alright. He had the threats locked down, the police and paramedics had arrived, and if Kaname asked him one more time whether or not Yuuki was okay, Zero was going to shoot the actor in the foot to give him something else to worry about.

Even faster, the police took her statement of what had happened and the paramedics slapped a Band-Aid on the small cut on her cheek when the window of the limo had been shot out. Then, she was wrapped securely in Kaname’s arms and ushered into the mansion. Zero was there, pale eyes watchful, his fingers shaking slightly with leftover adrenaline.

Those people… those men who had been sending her those horrible letters and threatening her life… they were finally caught and Yuuki was safe.

But she didn’t feel safe.

Not even knowing Zero was still here.

They had been in her house, in her home, waiting here with guns to take her life. The sanctuary that was her house had been violated. Even with Zero guarding everyone downstairs, even knowing those men were now in police custody, Yuuki was afraid.

Now, alone in her room, shadows filling the corners and the wind howling outside, for the first time in years, Yuuki felt her young age. Giving up on sleep, she got out of bed and put her cold feet on the floor. She stuffed herself into her favorite quilted robe over her cotton pajamas and headed downstairs. She was hoping that Kaname hadn’t been able to sleep either and was sitting up reading as he sometimes did.

No such luck though.

Zero was the only one downstairs, sitting up in the living room, watching over the house with his gun lying on the coffee table within easy reach and a mug of steaming coffee cradled in his hands. His eyes seemed to glow in the dark, as pale as starlight. Though Zero had been her bodyguard for nearly a month, Yuuki hadn’t spent that much time talking to him. He was always at her side, but they had rarely spoken. 

“Ah,” Yuuki gasped when she saw him and turned to leave, even though it was her house.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice strong in the darkness.

“I was just… hoping Kaname was awake, too.”

Zero set down his mug softly. “Are you afraid?”

She clenched her hands into fists and shook her head.

“I can see you shaking,” he murmured. “It’s alright to be afraid. It’s a scary thing to have your life threatened.”

She sighed heavily. “You don’t look afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of having my life threatened.”

Yuuki turned to look at him. He was seated comfortably, his elbows resting on his bent knees and his steepled fingers pressed against his lips. His eyes and hair and skin were all so pale that he looked so much like a ghost it was almost unnerving. She came into the living room and stood in front of him so that he had to tilt his head to look up at her.

“Then… what are you afraid of?” she asked.

He looked away, sighing softly. “Just of… not being there.”

“Not being there?” she repeated. 

He nodded.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not the kind of story to go to bed to,” he told her. “You should go back upstairs and try to get some sleep.”

Yuuki sat down on the couch beside him. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “Just… tell me and then… I’ll go to sleep.”

He glanced at her and then looked out the window at the night beyond. His eyes darted, searching, watching, ever vigilant, ever aware. 

“Please?” Yuuki murmured.

He didn’t speak. 

Yuuki sought to loosen his tongue. “Is there… anyone special in your life? A girl, maybe?”

He jolted, his eyes shooting to her face. There was something dark and hurt in his expression, a pain that would never fade.

“What did I say?” she whispered. 

“I’m afraid of not being there because… the day I wasn’t there, the girl I loved was killed,” he said softly. 

Tears welled in Yuuki’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“And I wasn’t there because… a few days before, when I wasn’t there, my twin was mugged and killed. When we buried him, and I left her side, she was killed. It seems that… when I’m not there, something bad happens. Someone dies…”

She gently put her hand on his knee, her skin warm. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

He met her eyes and then looked away. “There, I told you. Now… go to sleep.”

She glanced at the dark staircase and gripped his knee tightly. “I… I can’t. I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

She flushed. “It’s stupid. I feel like a child.”

“Because those men were in your house, right? You don’t feel safe anymore, do you?”

She nodded. She didn’t tell him she kept imagining there were monsters coming out of the shadows in the corners of her bedroom. She was certain a fear like that would seem stupid to him.

He stood up. “How about I go upstairs with you and look under the bed and in the closets and all that good stuff? Then, you can sleep easy.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you… making fun of me?”

A soft smile curved his lips, like he was remembering something nostalgic. As if in a dream, he murmured, “Maybe,” and offered her his hand. With his other hand, he picked up the gun from the coffee table and tucked it into the front of his jeans.

Yuuki slipped her fingers into his, comforted by the warmth of his hand. Zero led her upstairs and flipped on the light in her bedroom. He went to the window and checked the lock, but that was all. Apparently, he was making fun of her about looking under the bed and in the closet. 

“You’re safe,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m here.”

Yuuki recalled his fear—not being there. When he was gone… she wouldn’t be safe. She grasped his hand and looked up into his face. “Will you… stay with me, Zero? Just until I fall asleep?”

“There aren’t any more bad guys. You’re safe.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But… I feel safest when you’re with me.”

His eyes widened, a tinge of fear in the depths of those pale amethyst orbs.

“Please?” she whispered in the same moment he breathed out, “Alright.”

Still clutching his hand, Yuuki shrugged out of her robe and then led him to her bed. He hesitated there, staring at the rumpled sheets, as she slipped beneath them and tugged lightly on his hand. “Please, Zero, sit down. You may as well be comfortable.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, but his posture was stiff and tense. Yuuki scooted over, tugging on his fingers. Eventually, he did relax enough to lie down beside her, their noses inches from touching. His warm breath tickled her lips and a warmth rushed to pool in Yuuki’s lower belly. Kaname would have a fit if he ever found out about this.

“Are you still afraid?” Zero whispered to her.

She shook her head. “Are you?”

“I’m here,” was all he said.

Yuuki nodded, relaxing beside the heat of his body. The scent of his skin and clothes surrounded her like an embrace and his forehead was resting lightly against her own. She had never felt so safe as she did at this moment, but there was something more that she felt as well. Timidly, she lifted her chin just a little and pressed her lips to Zero’s.

He pulled back, his pale eyes shining. “What?” he breathed.

“I’m sorry I just—” she began.

The press of his mouth to hers silenced anything she was going to say. His arms were around her small body like a castle, cradling and protecting her. His lips were soft and warm, his kiss so gentle that she felt made of glass. His tongue gently touched her lower lip and she welcomed him in, kissing him deeper and deeper. 

His hands made the first move, gently cupping her small breasts through her pajama top. Eagerly, Yuuki began to unfasten the buttons and guided his hands to her bare flesh. His thumbs brushed her nipples and she gasped as the pleasure and heat surged through her blood. 

When his right hand left her breast and slipped beneath the elastic band of her pajama pants, she spread her legs wide for him. He smiled into her lips and touched her soaking folds. She moaned loudly, loud enough that he pressed his mouth to hers for worry of the sounds escaping into the rest of the house.

“If you want to do this,” Zero whispered, “you have to be quiet.”

She nodded. “Just keep… ah… kissing me.”

He pulled her flush against him, pulling the pajamas from her body so that she was nestled against him in only her panties. Yuuki slipped her hands beneath his t-shirt, her hands wandering the smooth strong planes of muscles. Then, she felt each dip and bump and crag of scar on his chest.

“Wow,” she whispered.

“I’m like Doctor Frankenstein’s monster,” he said softly. “It’s not pretty.” He pulled her hands from beneath his shirt and laid them on top of the fabric. “You don’t want to see it…”

“I do,” she said softly, reaching for the hem again.

He caught her hands. “Trust me, you don’t…”

She nodded. “Alright.”

Together, they unfastened his belt and he slithered out of his jeans. Yuuki discovered that her bodyguard went commando and giggled softly, running her hand over the outside of his thigh before gingerly wrapping her fingers around the long shaft of him. God, he was so large. She wasn’t sure he would even fit inside her. He cupped her sex, nudged the barrier of her panties aside, and pushed one finger into her tight heat. She moaned loudly and he stifled the sounds with a deep kiss, his tongue matching the pace he set with his fingers below. 

“Is it your first time?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

“What about protection?”

“I’m on the pill,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around his back. 

“But—”

“Please, I want you.”

Zero wrapped his arms around her and lifted her to straddle his hips, letting her be on top. It seemed it wasn’t his first time either. Gently, he positioned his tip at her wet entrance and pushed his hips up a little. She groaned, mingling pain and pleasure. He was so big.

“You’re in control,” he said softly. “Lean down. Let me kiss you.”

Yuuki dipped her head and their mouths met, tangling together. As she kissed him, she rolled her hips downward and he pushed up slightly. He had amazing self-control to be able to go so slowly and patiently with her, but then again, he was her bodyguard. Finally, he was sheathed fully inside her and she had never felt so completely full in her life.

“Ah, Zero, please, start moving,” she gasped.

Cradling her small body close so that they were pressed chest to chest with her still on top, Zero gripped her small hips and helped her rise up on her knees to give him room. Then, powerfully, he trust into her. She whimpered his name, her tight body clenching around his shaft. He groaned and pushed up into her hard and deep. She moaned loudly and he brought her lisp to his, swallowing and silencing the sounds she made.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his pale hair, and clung to him as he thrust into her. It was all she could do to not scream his name for the whole world to hear. He felt so good and she had a feeling it wasn’t because of his size alone. It was the way she felt in his arms—so completely and totally safe that all she felt was the sensations of his body moving within her own. She trusted him completely.

Zero’s body was strong and powerful, each thrust filling her to the brim of her soul. They were twined so tightly together that it was hard to tell where one of them ended and the other began. His kiss devoured her mouth, his shaft filled her completely, he was holding her heart, he was cradling her body, her arms were tightly around him and her fingers tangled in his hair. His hands seemed to be everywhere at once, on her nipples and clitoris, wracking her body with unbelievable pleasure. Then, he came, filling her with the liquid heat of his seed.

Panting desperately, Yuuki collapsed against his chest, riding the waves of their combined orgasm. Zero remained inside her, softening so slowly that she wondered if they would go at it again. She could feel his hot seed trickling from her body, but snuggled deeper into his embrace. Where she had been disgusted by that feeling before, she didn’t care now. She couldn’t bear to leave his arms.

“Zero?” she whispered. “I’ve never felt so safe. I know nothing can get passed you.”

He snuggled her against his clothed chest, her fingers wandering the scarred skin beneath. “It wouldn’t be so hard to get passed me right now,” he said softly.

She glanced up at his face and saw the glint of his gun lying on the nightstand. “Yeah right,” she laughed.

He smiled, pressing a kiss to her temple. “You’re safe. I’m here,” was all he said.

X X X

Man, I was halfway through this chapter and then my computer shut off and the auto-recover only saved about half of it so I had to rewrite a bunch of stuff and it really pissed me off. I hate it when that happens. Thank god it doesn’t happen much or I’d have a heart attack.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	3. Monster

I do not own Meg and Dia’s song, “Monster.”

This chapter goes with a video I made and posted on Youtube but has been removed due to copyright. (I swear, Vampire Knight is caught in the middle of the copyright warpath.) So, after much struggling, I have re-uploaded it on Vimeo, Zero and Yuuki: Monster. You can find it at this link, just remove the spaces: http://vimeo. com/38926899. Hopefully, it will stay up this time.

Summary: Zero has never known love, but he’s always wanted it. 

X X X

It was hard to determine when things like this actually started happening. Cross Kaien had grown up in an abusive home himself and when child services finally saved him, he spent his young life in foster home after foster home after foster home. He never had a real home, never laid down roots, never had a family. That was why he started Cross Academy. It was meant to be a home for orphans to live under his care and guidance, but there was a catch. He took in the troubled ones, the ones no one else could bear to even try to love. It wasn’t pretty to see children no one cared for day in and day out, but Kaien told himself he was doing good. After all, he loved them. He loved the broken ones. (1)

And he loved them all equally. 

Until Yuuki, that was. She was brought to him in the dead of night, reminding him of the old saying ‘nothing good happens between midnight and four in the morning,’ but the statement was wrong for once. Yuuki proved to be the light of his life as time went on. She was damaged, showing up in the care of a young policeman, Kuran Kaname, in the wee hours of the morning. There was blood on her face, a distant look in her large tear-filled eyes, and bruises on her throat. She might have been six, maybe five. 

No one knew anything about her but her name and even that was shaky. They assumed it was her name because it was embroidered on the heavy too-big coat she wore. It might not even have been hers and she didn’t speak to tell them otherwise.

Without question, Kaien took her in.

Four years later, Yuuki had come out of her shell and forgotten everything in her past that might have hurt her. She smiled, she laughed, she loved. She was like a girl who had grown up in a real loving family instead of Kaien’s crazily-run orphan school for the unloved and broken. She was a ray of sunshine and then the storm clouds rolled in on one cold and snowy night.

The knock came at a time when nothing good happened, except Yuuki that was.

Kuran Kaname, the policeman who Kaien had befriended and spoke to often about new children flitting through the police stations or living on the streets, arrived between midnight and four in the morning. It was just like it had been with Yuuki, only somehow much worse. Gusts of icy snow blew in through the door when Kaien opened it.

“Hello Kaien,” Kaname said with a small smile. “Sorry to wake you.”

“Kaname, what’s wrong?” he asked, ushering the policeman and his small ward inside.

“This is Kiryuu Zero,” Kaname explained, keeping a hand pressed to the youth’s back. “I responded to the call. His mother tried to kill him and he needs someplace safe.” He lifted his warm brown eyes to the heavy beams of Kaien’s Academy. “He needs this place… and you… Will you, Kaien?”

There was no hesitation. “Of course,” he said immediately and reached out for the boy.

The child didn’t move save a faint shifting of his pale amethyst eyes that went right into Kaien’s soul and chilled him to the bone. He didn’t know what to do with this boy. He wasn’t even sure there was anything he could do.

“Ah,” Kaname remarked suddenly. “Hi Yuuki. I can see you.”

The girl peeked around the threshold of the hallway, blushing and clad in her cotton pajamas. “Hi Kaname. I heard the door and I just wanted to…” Her deep chocolate eyes fell on the boy. “Who’s this?” she asked instead of finishing her earlier sentence.

Kaien nudged the boy. “This is Zero. Could you do me a huge favor, Yuuki, and get him into a hot bath while I talk with Kaname?”

She nodded, her lips curving into a warm smile. “Of course,” she said to Kaien and practically skipped to Zero’s side. 

She hesitated there though, taking in his appearance. His small body was wrapped in Kaname’s police blazer and clutched tightly closed at his throat from the inside. He was wearing no socks or shoes and his feet her bright red with cold. The coat just swallowed him up so that she couldn’t see any trace of skin save his face. His pale eyes and pale hair spoke volumes of suffering, as did the way he shied from her touch, but Yuuki was more cautious than most children. She had been hurt more than most children, after all. 

“Is it alright if I touch you?” she asked kindly.

He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no.

Gingerly, she touched his shoulders, guiding him away from the adults and to the bathroom down the hall. She started the water in the shower and then turned back to him, nervously watching the way he just stood there without moving, watching her so closely.

“I’m going to… take your clothes off, okay?”

Again, he didn’t respond, only watched her strongly.

She peeled Kaname’s windbreaker from his fingers and laid it on the edge of the sink, gasping at the sight hidden beneath. He was naked save tattered too-small and too-short pajama pants in dire need of washing. His entire naked torso was covered in bruises and small burns. At his thin throat, there was a long gash that had scabbed thickly over and the blood hadn’t so much dried at frozen to his skin. Someone had hurt him badly, just like she had been hurt, just like Kaien had been hurt…

“The shower,” she breathed.

He met her eyes and there was something profoundly strange in his gaze. It was like… he had never known kindness before, never known these softly spoken words. Yuuki pushed him towards the shower, not quite brave enough to pull off his pants for him, and close the glass stall door. He pressed his hand to the glass beseechingly for a very long time, breaking her empathetic heart.

...

His little whispers, “Love me. Love me.  
That’s all I ask for. Love me. Love me.”  
He battered his tiny fists to feel something.  
Wondered what it’s like to touch and feel something.

...

Kaien ushered Kaname into the kitchen, put on coffee, and poured a cup for himself and the policeman as soon as it finished. Kaname gulped a great mouthful, wincing as the hot liquid scalded the inside of his mouth, but too tired and desperate to wait for it to cool. Kaien was just as impatient, but not for the coffee.

“What happened to him?” Kaien asked Kaname as soon as he finished wheezing in pain.

Kaname shuddered, setting down his mug. “His parents have been torturing him, mostly mentally. The physical aspect hasn’t taken such a turn until tonight.”

“It always turns eventually. Why?”

Kaname rolled his shoulders. “Why does any of this happen? His mother regretted ever having him, his father hated him, no one loved him. They’ve always called him ‘monster’ to his face. I don’t think he’s ever heard his own name from their lips.”

“And tonight?”

“His father didn’t come home and his mother tried to kill him, nearly succeeded too, if I hadn’t arrived when I did.”

“That’s horrible. And the father?”

“Killed in a car accident earlier today,” Kaname told him.

Kaien took off his glasses, rubbed his face, and sighed heavily. “Why does this keep happening? To kids on top of it all?”

Kaname shook his head and took of sip of coffee. “I don’t know,” the policeman whispered. “I don’t know. But… at least there’s you, Kaien. At least you’re here for them, even if no one else is…”

“Yeah,” he murmured. But there as really nothing else positive about this situation. No matter how badly he had been treated by his parents, Zero would find some way to forgive them, to keep loving them, to want them back, and that was what was so fucking sick about this whole situation. Adults had it in them to hate and hurt without care, but children didn’t. Children learned and loved and cared. 

...

Monster.  
How should I feel?  
Creatures lie here.  
Looking through the windows.

...

As Kaien had predicted, the years passed slowly and painfully for the boy named Zero. The only thing that possibly made his life worth living was Yuuki. Her warm smile and her cheerful laughter, her warm embraces and soft on-the-cheek kisses. She was Zero’s best friend and he was hers. 

They were always together—inseparable, bonded together at the hip because they had both been brought to Kaien by Kaname between midnight and four in the morning on a cold snowy night.

On another such night, as teenagers, they were lying on the floor doing their homework on the thick Persian rug in front of the roaring fire. The snow had frosted over the windows and left a thick white blanket of purity over the world outside the safety of the academy. Zero had finished his math and was watching Yuuki as she worked, his face pillowed on his arms. She was still struggling with her algebra, but was too proud to ask for his help.

“Hey,” Zero said suddenly, pale eyes catching the firelight. “What kind of feeling is love, Yuuki?”

She finished her calculations and then glanced at him. She wasn’t sure she had heard him right and her heart was pounding. “Say that again, Zero.”

“I asked you what love feels like,” he repeated, pale eyes focused on her as they always were.

She pressed her pencil to her lower lip and then whispered, “Close your eyes, Zero,” with a soft smile playing on her lips.

Zero eyed her, but he trusted her completely and she trusted him. Lifting his head, he let his eyes slide closed and waited for whatever it was she would do. For a moment, nothing happened and she was about to open his eyes when he felt the soft warm press of something against his lips. His eyes snapped open of their own accord and he found himself staring into Yuuki’s face, her eyes closed tightly, as she kissed him. He didn’t know what to do back to her, so he just sat there, his lips parting slightly beneath hers.

She pulled back, her cheeks pink. “Like that, Zero,” she said. “It feels just like that.”

He had never known a hug before he came to Kaien’s orphan academy. All he got out of her kiss and her explanation was—physical touch. If you touched someone’s lips with your own, it was love. But he wanted to show Yuuki just how completely he loved her. What else could he touch to show her his love?

...

That night, he caged her,  
Bruised and broke her.  
He struggled closer,  
Then he stole her.  
Violet wrists and then her ankles,  
Silent pain.  
Then he slowly saw their nightmares were his dreams.

...

Zero had once woken with a nightmare back when he was still living with his parents. Then, he was not allowed to come into his mother’s comforting arms, but was only a child and he was afraid. The monsters would get him, even though his parents always told him that he was the monster. He had walked down the dark hall to their bedroom and looked through the keyhole. Inside, the lights were all out and he saw the gleam of his mother’s naked skin. Then, he didn’t know what his father was doing to her, why she was moaning as if she was in pain. He had opened the door, screaming. 

Everything happened so fast. His mother clutched up the blankets in an embrace Zero desperately wanted. His father crossed the room, naked, his footsteps loud. His father’s fingers were like knives, grabbing his upper arm and dragging him back to his dark room. He threw him down on the bed, mean eyes shining in the darkness. Then, he shattered the night light and plunged the child into pitch darkness, leaving him alone with his monsters and his nightmares. Then, he had no idea what he had seen, but as a teenager, he knew what it was.

Sex.

Fucking.

Making love.

If he could touch Yuuki like that, maybe she would understand the way he wanted to be with her. If he could make love to her, maybe she would realize that she was the   
only person who lived in his heart. He had loved her since that first night when Kaname brought him to Kaien’s academy. Yuuki had been the first person to truly touch him, to truly look into his eyes, to actually see him, and then speak his name. After years of never knowing a kind touch, Yuuki was a lifeboat in an ocean of pain.

So, Zero tried to recreate the night he had seen his parents together. He waited until everyone in the academy was asleep and then got out of his bed, walking to Yuuki’s room just down the hall from his own. A warm lamp was burning, flickering light across the walls. Zero lifted the glass and blew the small flame out. Darkness descended around him and it was just like that night so many years ago.

He smiled softly, his body tingling and warmth with anticipation. Yes, this was going to work. Yuuki would understand him, love him, touch and hold him again.  
Silently, Zero opened the door and his eyes fell on Yuuki’s sleeping face, pale moonlight ghosting across her features. She was so beautiful, her rich dark hair like fine silk, her creamy lids closed, her soft pink lips curved into a smile. He wondered what she was dreaming about.

“Yuuki,” he whispered.

She rolled onto her back, a smile curving her lips, but she didn’t wake. The moonlight played across her pale skin and her breasts rose and fell slowly within the confines of her tank top. This would be the moment he showed her everything he felt, he thought, as he stripped out of his pajamas. It was going to be hard to get her out of hers, but he would figure something out. 

Physical contact… that was love, wasn’t it?

That’s how she had explained it to him.

Zero slowly pulled the covers off of her, watching as she moaned and shifted with a slight shiver, but still didn’t wake. Then, he crawled onto her bed, his body hovering above hers. He captured her wrists, caging them within his large hands. Her eyes fluttered open, glowing in the dark.

“Zero?”

He silenced her with a kiss, covering her mouth so completely that she couldn’t even think. She could feel the hardness of his arousal pressing against her stomach, his grip on her wrists was tight and painful, and his kiss was fierce. Yuuki was truly afraid of what was going to happen, but she couldn’t fear Zero. Never Zero… they had been together for too long. And deep inside, she loved him.

He captured both her wrists in one hand and used his free hand to pull down her pajama pants and panties. Her lower half naked, she writhed beneath him, saying something into his mouth, but he didn’t stop to listen. He slipped his hips between her thighs, found her entrance like the soft petals of a flesh flower, and began to push into her. Something prevented him, a barrier inside her.

Yuuki broke the kiss. “Stop! You’re hurting me, Zero.”

He met her eyes, uncomprehending. “But… I love you.”

Tears swelled in her eyes. “Not like this, Zero, not like this.”

He looked at her, at her tear-stained face. “Then how?” he whispered.

“L-let me go,” she pleaded and he did.

She shimmied away from him, feeling the tip of his erection slide out, and closed her naked legs. Unlike his mother had years ago, Yuuki did not embrace the blankets. Instead, she reached out and wrapped him tightly in her arms. Zero melted into her, squeezing her tight against his bare chest.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered softly.

“Zero,” she murmured. “What… were you trying to do?”

“I wanted to… make love to you.”

“But that was almost… rape,” she whispered.

He clung to her. “I never meant to—”

“I know,” she said gently, stroking his silver-white hair. “I know.”

Zero hadn’t known a hug or a kiss until he was eleven years old and had arrived in the dead of night at Kaien’s orphan academy. Unlike Yuuki, who had been found and wrapped in Kaien’s safety at a much younger age, there was a damaged part of Zero that would probably never heal after what had been done to him. His own mother had tried to kill him, had named him Zero because he was nothing, had called him a ‘monster’ since the day he was old enough to understand…

“Oh, Zero,” Yuuki whispered and lovingly cradled him to her. Somehow, she would have to teach him as she had been taught, what it was like to love and be loved. He nestled into her embrace tightly, inhaling the soft scent of her hair and skin. She seemed to be trembling slightly, but it might have been him.

...

Monster.  
How should I feel?  
Creatures lie here.  
Looking through the windows.  
I will hear their voices.  
I’m a glass child.   
I am Hannah’s regrets.

...

There were bruises on Yuuki’s wrists that remained for about a week. Zero could hardly stand to look at the marks he had left on his best friend, but Yuuki was still the same. She smiled at him and hugged him and kissed his lips lightly and laughed. She was someone so special, so perfect…

A monster like him didn’t deserve to even bask in her shadow.

Zero tried to stay away from her, but he couldn’t. When his own desire to be hugged and smiled at didn’t bring him crawling back to her feet, she sought him out and did so anyway. She had forgiven him completely for almost taking her that night and had never told Kaien what had happened between them.

In his head, he still heard the mean whispers spoken by his parents. Each word was like a shard of glass, cutting into him when he was a child. He was nothing but a regret for his mother, a monster, a demon, something worth killing. His dreams of a loving embrace and a family who cared were her worst nightmares. Everything he had known then was backwards and twisted beyond repair. He was Zero—worthless, nothingness.

Lying on the Persian carpet beside her one night, watching her struggle through her homework as usual, Zero suddenly closed his eyes and turned away. Yuuki saw his fingers go to the scar on his throat, fingering ht mark that his mother had left on him. It had been a long time since he had touched that scar.

“Zero?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He glanced at Yuuki and then closed his eyes. “I’m a monster, Yuuki,” he whispered to her.

She shook her head, her large eyes soft and caring. 

“I am. You’ve seen me at my worst, Yuuki. My own mother… never loved me. She tried to kill me,” he breathed.

“She was the monster.”

“How should I feel, Yuuki?” he asked her, his pale eyes meeting hers. “How is all this supposed to make me feel?”

She reached out, her cupping the side of his face with her palm. “Zero,” she murmured.

He met her eyes, his lips parting to speak her name, but she didn’t let him speak. She wrapped her arms around his torso and held him close. Her homework lying forgotten on the thick rug in front of the fire. Yuuki cradled him, stroking his hair, and he dipped his face into the side of her neck. 

If love was something more than physical contact and sex, he decided that this was it. Being held like this—Yuuki’s lips pressed to his cheek, her fingers tangled in his hair, her heart beating slowly in time with his own—this was the closest he had ever come to that mystical unreachable feeling called love.

...

Monster.   
How should I feel?  
Turn the sheets down,  
Murder ears with pillow lace.  
There’s bathtubs full of glow flies,  
Bathe in kerosene.  
Their words tattooed in his veins. Yeah!

...

Yuuki gave Zero the message after dinner, a soft kiss against his lips, whispered words, a tight embrace. Despite what he had nearly done to her. She still loved him and she wanted to try again. This time, she would show him, teach him, how it was supposed to be between two people in love. Nervous, the light burning in the hallway, Zero knocked on the door to her bedroom before entering. Yuuki was waiting for him, her room lit with scented candles and a nervous beautiful smile on her pale face.

“Zero,” she whispered and opened her arms towards him.

He came into her embrace, burying his face into the side of her throat. “Yuuki,” he breathed.

She cupped his face, angling his chin so she could look into his pale amethyst eyes. “Like this,” she whispered to him and kissed his lips gently. 

Zero let her lead, her soft wet tongue teasing the seam of his lips until he opened his mouth. Her tongue slipped in, dancing with his, and he felt her smile into him. His arms snaked around her small body, cradling her flush against him. Her fingers unfastened the buttons of his cotton pajama top and pushed it from his shoulders. 

Gingerly, her fingers explored the flat plains of his chest and stomach. The scars from so long ago were still on his pale flesh—the cigarette burns, slashes, and claw marks remained, though the bruises had healed. 

“And like this,” she whispered into his mouth before breaking the kiss to burn a path down the side of his throat, nipping his pulse and collarbones gently. She spent a long moment lavishing attention on the scar at the side of his throat, licking and kissing the small raised keloid. Then, softly, she ran her thumbs over his nipples, chuckling as he jolted against her. “Now,” she breathed. “Do it to me.”

Zero stared at her a moment, his throat dry, but her eyes were so soft and beautiful. She was purely an angel. He dipped his head, kissing her deeply as he had been shown, but he didn’t try to dominate her as he had before—as he had seen his father do to his mother as a child. He remained sitting beside her, his tongue dipping past her teeth, while his fingers nervously unfastened the buttons of her pajama shirt in turn. She helped him, their fingers tangling.

He kissed a path down her throat, worshipping her with tongue and teeth. This time, he was impossibly gentle and didn’t leave so much as a red spot on her pale creamy skin. He cupped her small breasts, palming the soft weight and then ghosting his thumbs over her nipples. As he had, she jolted and shivered at the touch on her virginal body. He smiled against her skin, please with his ability. He was making her feel good and he wasn’t hurting or scaring her.

“Now,” Yuuki whispered and slipped her hand into his. “Show me how you like to be touched, Zero. Guide my hand.”

Nervously, he tugged down his pajama pants to free himself and wrapped her thin fingers around the hard shaft. His skin was soft and warm, like living velvet, but so hard it seemed impossible and painful. He guided Yuuki’s hand up and down the shaft, stroking and squeezing, rubbing her fingertips over the weeping head. When she understood, she pulled his hand from her own and pressed a kiss to the back of it before recapturing his lips. 

She continued to stroke him, her fingers deft and flexible. It helped that she was doing exactly what he liked without guessing or fumbling. He felt the familiar coil begin to build in his belly and cupped a hand over the head of himself, even as Yuuki curiously glanced at him. Then, his orgasm rocked him, the warm sticky seed splattering against his palm. Yuuki handed him a tissue to clean up and then tossed it in the trash. 

She rose onto her knees on the bed and pulled off her pajama pants and panties before taking his hand. She pulled him down on the bed to lie beside her, draping hr arm over his hips. As he had done for her, she guided his fingers between her legs and showed him exactly how to touch her. When he had the hang of it, he brushed her hand away and kissed her deeply, their tongues tangling. 

He was amazed by her body’s response as he touched her. The more he touched her, the more hot wetness flooded her folds. When he touched her little pearl, her hips bucked and she clutched him like her last lifeline. Then, he found her entrance and slipped a finger into her. The barrier was still there, just inside her. She moaned softly, her breath hot against his skin. The sounds Yuuki made were nothing like what he had heard so long ago. There was no pain in her voice, only bliss and pleasure.

“Ah, Zero,” she whispered and handed him a condom. “Let’s… let’s be together completely.”

He tore the small foil packet with his teeth and rolled it on, her eyes curiously watching him. Then, with her hands, she guided him to hover over her, his weight braced on his hands and her arms wrapping around his naked back. She spread her legs, coiling them around his sharp hips, and gripped his hardened member. 

“Move your hips forward a little,” Yuuki said softly.

He did and felt the heat of her tight channel begin to engulf him. Then, he felt the barrier again, stopping him, and she whimpered in pain.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.

“It’s my first time,” she explained. “You have to… just a little bit. It’s alright, Zero. Here, kiss me and do it fast.”

He dipped his head, kissing her gently, and thrust his hips hard, breaking into her completely. She gasped into his mouth, tears rolling down her cheeks. He wanted to badly to move, but something stopped him, some sixth sense that insisted he not hurt her again. He waited, sheathed inside her, feeling her hot muscles clenching around him.

“Ah, I’m ready,” she said finally. “Thank you for… waiting. I wasn’t sure you would.”

“How should I move?” he asked her.

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him down for a kiss. “However feels good to you, Zero.”

He nodded and pressed close, naked chest to chest. Her breasts heaved as he began to move within her, thrusting deep and slow until the tightness left her body and her face had morphed into a mask of pleasure. She ran her fingers through his hair, gasping his name. He didn’t even need her direction anymore. Her body and face responded to his every move, arched into his kiss, pleaded and whispered his name. It was like a map right into her heart, or at least into her body. 

Love?

Love.

A bubble of warmth built up in his chest, considerably higher than the pleasurable coil of an orgasm. It seemed to be right in his heart, a ripple of goose bumps flowing through his skin and building up in the back of his throat until it seemed like the warm feeling was going to burst out of his every pore. 

“Yuuki… I…”

She smiled, her eyes soft and glazed. “K-keep going,” she begged him.

He pressed his lips to hers, swallowing the final cry of his name as her body clenched around his member in the throes of her orgasm. Then, his own raced through his blood and he spilled inside her, collapsing down against her breasts. Her arms coiled around his back, clutching him close as she trembled in the afterglow. 

“I love you, Yuuki,” Zero whispered.

She shook her head. “This isn’t love, Zero,” she told him.

“But—”

She pressed a hand to his chest, over his heart. “It’s in here, Zero,” she whispered. “Do you feel it?”

His mind flew back to the warmth he had felt while looking into her flushed pleasured face. “Is that… love?” 

She stared into his pale eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

“You love me?”

“Yes.”

He embraced her tightly and he never wanted to let go. It didn’t matter what he had been through. It didn’t matter that he was Zero. She loved him, despite everything. And he loved her, despite everything. It was twisted, like a song, but nothing in life was completely perfect.

X X X

(1) A shout out to Dia’s other song that I love, “The Broken Ones.”

Be sure to check out my video for this! Zero and Yuuki: Monster, link: http://vimeo. com/38926899

Questions, comments, concerns?


	4. It's Movie Perfect

This originally started as YukixVampire’s request, but it gotten eaten halfway through so I’ll have to try again.

Summary: After her date with Kaname turns ugly, Yuuki finds herself in a new cliché situation with the beautiful boy who works in the movie theater.

X X X

Yuuki Cross was overjoyed.   
Her one dream, her girlish desire, her singular goal, her… fantasy… Well, it was finally becoming a reality. She had done everything she could possibly do to try to make her fleeting dream a reality. She had tried out for the cheerleading squad, made it, and worked herself up to head cheerleader. She dieted, learned to perfectly apply makeup, dyed her plain brown hair with lovely red highlights, and wore padded bras to enhance herself. 

Everything was perfect. It was just like it was in the movies. 

All she had to do was be available and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Finally, all her waiting and hard work had paid off. 

It happened at the homecoming football game. For once, her high school’s team—the Bats—was actually winning and against their rival team, the Sun Devils. It was a little ironic that two such aptly-named teams were such bitter and evenly-matched rivals. In the past three games, the Suns had taken home the gold and left the Bats in the dark. But not this time. The score was thirty-four to eighteen with only eight minutes left in the second half.

Yuuki knew there was still a chance for the Suns to turn it all around. They were brutal at the end of a game, as if they had saved up all their energies for the end, but the Bats could hold strong if they just had the support of their team. So, Yuuki whipped the cheerleaders and the people in the stands into a frenzy. She got them chanting, cheering, booing, stomping their feet, and eventually singing “We Will Rock You!” Then, the air horn sounded through the warm night and the game was over. 

The Bats had won.

Yuuki was proud of her school, proud of her team, and proud of her squad. She threw herself into a triple cartwheel and landed in the splits, shouting, “Who do you love?” into the night. The answering chant of “Bats! Bats! Bats!” made a slow grin work its way across her features.

A hand came into her peripheral vision and she took it gratefully, pulling herself to her feet and brushing off her uniform. “Thanks,” she began and then her voice got lost in her throat. This was it—the moment she had been waiting for. It was cliché, she knew that, but still… she felt in her heart that this was it.

And it was.

“Hey Yuuki,” he said and flashed her a killer smile. Kaname Kuran—the quarterback, school heartthrob, and all around gorgeous guy—was standing there with his helmet tucked under his arm and his football war paint still decorating his pale cheeks. “You really pulled them through for us. I didn’t think we’d be able to hold on, but you got everyone cheering and it was a cinch.”

She blushed, looking down at her toes. “It was… it was nothing.”

He tucked his warm fingers under her chin. “It was something alright,” he said. “I’d like to show my appreciation, if you’d let me.”

She met his eyes, those warm deep beautiful pools of molten chocolate. “Yeah?” she heard her voice say, but she was hardly aware of speaking. She was wholly captivated by those eyes, by that mouth, by his lips and teeth. She wanted a kiss. She wanted to kiss him.

“Yeah,” he said, his thumb brushing the corner of her mouth as if he was thinking it too. “So, how about this Friday? Are you busy? I can pick you up at eight.”

“Definitely,” Yuuki gasped out.

“Good,” Kaname said, his voice as smooth as fresh butter. He leaned down and brushed a kiss on her cheekbone. “I’ll see you then, Yuuki.” Then, he walked away, following the rest of the team as they cheered over their win. 

The moment must have only lasted a minute at most, but to Yuuki, it felt like an eternity. She stood on the field until everyone was gone. Then, when she was certain she was alone, she turned her face to the sky and screamed, “Yes!”

And so, that was why Yuuki Cross was overjoyed.

Friday just couldn’t come fast enough after that, but finally, that fateful day had arrived. Yuuki darted around her room, trying on skirt after dress after shirt after shoes. She had to look her best tonight. She had to impress Kaname. She had to make him fall in love with her so her fairytale could become her perfect reality. Smiling and singing as she pulled off another top, she tore through several more outfits until she was certain she had finally gotten it.

She chose a lovely lilac dress that came to just above her knees with a layered ruffled hem of palest lavender. The top also had a ruffle run through with a deep purple ribbon that was tied in a bow between her breasts. Thin straps ran up over her shoulders, falling down over them occasionally, but the dress was so beautiful on her that it was worth it. The pale lilac color brought out the pale cream in her skin, the dark richness of her eyes, and complemented the red highlights in her hair. The soft silky material hugged her every curve and the skirt swirled in a graceful feminine twist around her lean legs. She completed the ensemble with thigh-high lilac stockings, topped with ruffled garters to hold them up, and white lace-up ballet flats on her feet. (1)

She applied some lipstick to her lips and shadowed in her eyes in violet to match the dress. Though the dress was beautiful, she felt a little strange and tied a violet ribbon around her throat to cover up a little more skin. Then, she blew a kiss at her reflection, grabbed her beaded white purse, and headed downstairs. It was ten of eight and she didn’t want to keep Kaname waiting.

At precisely eight, Kaname came to the door to fetch her like the perfect gentleman. He was wearing jeans and a rich black-cherry button up shirt with a black on black striped tie. He looked… good enough to eat and all the blood rushed out of Yuuki’s brain. The fact that he took her hand, feathered a kiss on the back of it, and told her she looked beautiful didn’t help much either.

Flushing from head to toe and incoherent, Kaname ushered Yuuki out to his car. She sank into the leather seat of the plush interior and suddenly wondered where they were going. The Kurans had more money than God and Kaname had plenty to throw around. She was suddenly a little nervous.

Kaname took her hand. “Don’t worry about anything, beautiful,” he purred. “Just smile.”

And she did. It was hard not to. She was overjoyed.

Kaname had clearly put some thought into the night and it was tapered down to something Yuuki would be comfortable with. They had dinner in a nice restaurant, but not a five star one—it was dressy-casual at best. The food was delicious though and she was giddy with the atmosphere of the Italian food, candlelight, and live grapevines hanging all over the walls. Then, Kaname took her to a movie, letting her choose whatever she wanted.

“I’m here to make you happy,” he said and Yuuki practically melted.

Everything was perfect, like a dream. Kaname was engaging, his face so beautiful and his touches feather-light on her skin. Yuuki was beginning to melt in her seat and decided she would be grateful when the movie started and distracted him so that she wouldn’t have a chance to do something embarrassing like throw herself at him and kiss him repeatedly. As it turned out, all the trouble started the same time as the movie.

Yuuki had chosen a romantic comedy. It was like a bad train wreck. Even though everyone knew exactly how it was going to end, they just had to keep watching. Kaname was probably bored out of his mind.

Yuuki was captivated by the actors and the set of the movie so she didn’t pay attention as Kaname pulled the patented “stretch-and-reach” and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him instead, intoxicated by the scent of his cologne. His hand slid down her shoulder, hanging over her breast, but he didn’t move to grope her. She reclined against his side comfortably. His other hand was suddenly resting on her thigh, his thumb rubbing soft circles. All she could think was how warm and rough his skin was. She was dizzy from the sensations running through her body.

His fingers slipped beneath the hem of her lilac dress, still rubbing small circles on her skin. His warm touch, his scent, the whole night… Yuuki was drunk on it. She just let him keep going, unsure what he was trying to do anyway. Maybe this was the prelude to the kiss of a lifetime. His fingers crept higher on her thighs and then slipped between them, nudging her legs apart just a little. A rush of heat went south and settled in a familiar place. 

This was… just like her fantasies about him. Was she dreaming?

His fingers brushed her core through her damp cotton panties and she jolted, shivering, in the seat beside him. The theater was mostly empty and for that, she was grateful… just in case. Even though she had always promised herself that if she couldn’t wait until marriage, her first time would be special. It would be in a bed with candles and roses. In a movie theater was not… special. It wasn’t her dream. Kaname’s lean fingers lifted the crotch of her panties, a small breeze of cool air beneath her skirt letting her know just how exposed she was. 

Yuuki almost protested.

Kaname’s breath was hot against her ear. “You’re soaked, Yuuki. How badly do you want me?”

She couldn’t answer.

He brushed his fingers against her again, experienced, going right to her pearl and flicking it between the pads of his fingers. She stifled a sound that nearly escaped and Kaname chuckled, his lips feathering against her neck. With his teeth, he untied her ribbon and pulled it away. His other hand moved to her breast, slipping beneath her dress and bra immediately. He felt how small her breasts truly were.

“Padding, huh, Yuuki?”

She flushed. “S-stop. Don’t… say things like that…”

He pushed a finger inside her tight channel, curling and stroking against her walls. She whimpered, her hips writhing uncontrollably against his hand. He added a second finger and began to pump, but it was difficult with her panties still on. He tugged them down her thighs and looked at them in the dim light of the theater.

“Simple cotton with butterflies, eh, Yuuki? That’s not what most girls wear on a date with me,” he said.

She blushed harder. “I… I’m not… most girls,” she whispered.

He slipped his fingers back into her and smirked as she moaned quietly. “Clearly,” he said. Then, he took her hand and guided it to a hard bulge in his trousers. “Here,   
touch me, too,” he whispered against the shell of her ear, his tongue tracing her flesh.

She shivered in bliss, experimentally stroking him through his jeans. He was so… hard and he felt so… big. It was strange, she thought. She had never pegged herself as someone who went to third base on a first date and in a movie theater no less. He bucked his hips against her hand, his fingers still wreaking havoc on her virgin folds. 

Then, without warning, he pulled her into his lap. 

A small shriek of surprise escaped her and a few people whispered, “Shh.”

Kaname’s hand closed over her mouth and Yuuki’s heart began to pound. 

“If we’re going to do this,” he whispered. “You have to be quiet.”

She heard his zipper being lowered and something hard pressed between her bare thighs. Oh god… he was going to—here!

“Stop,” she gasped, pulling down his hand. “Stop, Kaname.”

He covered her mouth again. “I’m a Kuran. Just give me what I want, Yuuki, and I’ll buy you a pretty necklace as a souvenir of our night together.”

She struggled, unable to get a grip on anything. She was caught in his lap, his erection between her thighs, her panties around her knees, his arms caged around her. A sudden fear ran through her. What if… she could escape him? What if she lost her virginity, right here and now? Kaname rolled on a rubber, somehow still keeping his hold on her, and lifted her slightly. The head of his erection rubbed through her soaking folds, seeking her entrance.

Tears welled in Yuuki’s eyes. “Please stop,” she begged him.

He shushed her, stroking her pearl again. 

She hated it, but it felt so good. “S-stop…”

The head of his erection found her entrance and pushed in just a fraction, her eager wetness rolling down the sides of the rubber. In another moment, he would be inside her and her first time would be gone, in a dark movie theater. It was no longer a fantastic dream. It was a nightmare. 

Yuuki screamed, her voice echoing shrilly.

Kaname cursed and shoved her away. She slammed into the row of seats in front of them, her hips painfully scraping the plastic. Her panties dropped to her ankles and slid off completely when she took a lunging leap away from Kaname. Wildly, she fled the theater as the lights in the dim interior came on so the employees could see what the screaming was about in a simple romantic comedy. They didn’t find anything. Kaname Kuran was already gone, taking with him Yuuki’s lost panties and her purse too.

…

Zero Kiryuu was closing up the theater, sweeping up popcorn and turning out the lights. He restocked the men’s bathroom and was about to go home when he realized… the women’s bathrooms still needed to be stocked with toilet paper, hand towels, and—dare he even think it—tampons and sanitary napkins in the wall dispenser. Sayori was supposed to do it, but she had been called home on a family emergency and Zero was the only other person working tonight. There was no one but him to do it.

Grumbling, he gathered everything up on his cart and pushed it down the hall to the restrooms. The theater was closed and everyone had left. What did it matter if he went into the ladies rest room anyway? Sighing, he pushed open the door. First, he filled the paper towels and then began meticulously going through the stalls, stocking the toilet paper. He was going to save tampons for last. Hell, he might skip them altogether and let Sayori do them when she came back.

He nudged the stall door halfway down the lineup, but it wouldn’t open. It rattled—locked.

Zero froze. “What the heck?” he muttered.

“Um,” a small voice said. “Occupied…”

Zero sighed again. It just wasn’t his night. First tampons and now this. “Listen, lady, we’re closed.”

“C-closed?” the small voice stuttered.

“Yeah. We’ve been closed for forty-five minutes now. Are you sick or something?”

“N-no.”

“Well, you’ve got to leave so I can finish closing up.”

“Oh… o-okay…” The stall door eased open and a small beautiful face peered out at him. This girl had possibly the largest eyes he had ever seen in his life, wide and innocent and the color of rich earth, doe-like. She had a sweet heart-shaped face and red-tinted chocolate tresses. She had clearly been on a date by the way she was dressed. “I… don’t suppose you found a white purse, did you?” she asked.

He shook his head. 

Her face fell, stricken. “Oh… Well, thanks and I’m sorry for, um, troubling you.”

Before he could respond, she whisked out the door and was gone. Behind her, a trace of saline tears and sweet perfume lingered. He wondered what had happened with her date to leave her hiding out in the bathroom until way past closing time, but it didn’t really matter. He wouldn’t see her again.

He finished up the toilet paper, spent a moment staring at the tampon dispenser, decided he didn’t get paid enough to deal with them, and finished closing up. Then, he got into his car and left the theater, driving right into fate.

That girl… She was walking alongside the road, hugging herself tightly in the cold night air.

“What the hell?” he muttered and pulled to a stop beside her, rolling down the window. “What are you doing?”

She glanced up at him, her eyes flooded with tears. “W-walking home,” she whispered and her teeth chattered.

Zero shoved the door open. “Get in. I’ll drive you,” he said brusquely.

Her doe-eyes widened. “No. That’s alright…”

“Don’t be stupid. It’s freezing. Just get in,” he snapped. “I’m not going to eat you.”

She glanced at the deserted expanse of road, clearly weighing her options. Then, finally, she nodded and slipped into the passenger seat, pulling the door closed behind her. She leaned into the seat gratefully, rubbing her icy fingers together.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

“No problem. Where do you live?”

She gave him the address and then gazed at him a moment. Zero knew he looked strange, not ugly or anything, but definitely different from everyone else. He had pale amethyst eyes and silvery hair, parchment pale skin, and a dark ink-black tattoo on the side of his neck. 

“What?” he asked her.

She jolted. “Nothing. I was just thinking that… your eyes matched my dress…”

He glanced at her. “They do.”

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

“Zero,” he said.

“I’m Yuuki.”

Silence stretched between them and curiosity finally got the better of Zero. “What were you doing in the bathroom for so long?”

She looked away, clenching her fingers into fists. “I was… on a date.”

“Some date if you wound up in the bathroom.”

“He… he…” Yuuki hesitated. Rape was such an ugly word, but it was what Kaname had nearly done to her, right? Wasn’t it? 

Zero glanced at her, then reached to turn up the heater. “He what?”

She shivered. “I thought he was going to rape me.”

“What?” Zero yelped out. Of all the things he had been expecting her to say, that was not one of them.

She nodded. “When he started, I wanted it… but then it went too far. He took my purse and my… panties.”

Zero tightened his hands on the wheel. “You should have come to me. We have security for that.”

“I screamed,” she whispered.

He cautiously reached across the console, wishing to give some manner of comfort to this strange girl. She shied away from his hand, but then seemed to shake herself and reached for him almost desperately. Her fingers were so cold that his skin felt like fire by comparison and Zero squeezed her fingers gently.

“It’s okay,” he murmured to her. “It’s okay.”

She looked at him and smiled and his heart warmed to the very core. Whoever she was, despite what she had been through tonight, Zero wanted her to be his until the end of time. Thinking it would frighten her, he didn’t say that, but he smiled softly in return. An expression came over her as if she had the same feeling he did. Put into simple cliché terms, it was love at first sight.

…

Once again, like the fateful night she had first met Zero, Yuuki was overjoyed.

For the past few months, she had been dating Zero Kiryuu and enjoyed every minute of it. (Kaname on the other hand, turned out to be a real douche. He strung her stolen panties up on the school flagpole and wrote a bunch of crap about her on the bathroom wall. She had gotten so many lewd and nasty phone calls from his friends that she had actually changed her phone number.) But Kaname didn’t matter anymore. 

All that mattered was Zero. He was an angel and he was her angel.

And tonight… Well, tonight was the night. Zero’s parents were out for the weekend. Yuuki had told her own parents that she was spending the night at a friend’s, but really… she was going to Zero’s house. They would have it all to themselves and she was finally ready to give Zero all of herself. 

When she arrived and made her way to her room, she pushed open the door to find her fantasy all laid out. The bed was covered in roses, the thorns all removed, and countless vanilla-scented candles lit the room. Zero was just finishing lighting the last of the candles. 

He smiled at her gently. “What do you think?”

Her eyes welled with happy tears. After being with a guy who wanted to take her in a dark movie theater with people around to Zero, who had done all this for her. It was just… overwhelming. She threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him. “It’s beautiful. I love it! Thank you, Zero,” she whispered between kisses that she feathered all over his pale handsome face.

He held her close, returning her love whole-heartedly. “I’m glad,” he breathed and twisted his fingers in her dark hair, tilting her head so he could touch his lips to her throat. It was a sign of his affection, so deeply and completely him at it made Yuuki’s heart melt. Zero loved to press kisses to her pulse, as if feeling her heartbeat beneath the thin skin assured him that she was alive, that she was real, that she was his. She clung to him, soaking up the affection and the love he pressed all over her skin.

Then, his soft fingertips slipped beneath her shirt and silently began to unfasten the buttons of her blouse. She undressed him as well, running her hands over the bared plains of his chest and stomach, watching his muscles twitch beneath her fingers with a soft giggle. Zero smiled against her skin, gently peeling off her blouse and then unfastening her bra with some difficulty. Naked chest to chest, they pressed into a close embrace.

Yuuki inhaled the sweet scent of his skin, felt the warmth of him against her bare breasts, and she could feel his heart thundering beneath his ribs. She wondered if he could feel her racing heartbeat as well. Zero’s hands trailed softly down her back and gingerly cupped her buttocks, pulling her against him and letting her feel just how much he wanted her, how much he loved her.

Her hands went to his belt the same time he lowered the small zipper at the back of her skirt. She unfastened his belt, the snap, and lowered his zipper. Though they hated to separate, they stepped back to let the jeans and skirt fall. Then, in her panties and his boxers, they returned to their warm embrace. 

Yuuki wasn’t embarrassed. She felt as if she had been with Zero forever, as if they had loved each other before, as if this was her third or fourth life with him. Even though the inexperience of virgins shone through in the way he cupped her breasts or the way she timidly reached to stroke him, she felt as if she had loved him a lifetime’s worth.

He dipped his head, capturing her lips in a sweet kiss. His tongue gently probed, pleading entrance, and she welcomed him, enjoying the taste of his toothpaste and the lingering scent of roses on his lips. The vanilla-scented candles wrapped around her, making her giddy on the atmosphere and aroma mingled with Zero’s body. She felt so… so full of everything—love, joy, trust. He hooked his thumb in the waist of her panties and pulled them down her legs, holding her close against his naked chest. 

Yuuki stepped out of them when they reached her ankles. Timidly, wondering what he would look like in his full glory, she pulled down his boxers, but couldn’t bring herself to look. 

What if he was huge, like a porn star? And her body was so small? What if it really hurt?

Zero kissed her and all those thoughts just left her mind. He swept her up into his arms, cradling her gingerly, and then dipped his head to kiss the place between her collarbones, working his way into the valley of her breasts. Finally, he lay her down on the neatly-made bed covered in roses. For a moment, wrapped in dreamlike bliss, Yuuki rolled over in the roses, enjoying the painlessness. Zero had removed every thorn, every prickle, every leaf. Only the soft petals and stems remained, cushioning her body. When she finished her momentary enjoyment, she rolled over to face him where he was standing beside the bed, just watching her.

His erection was inches from the tip of her nose, quivering, and Yuuki just stared for a moment, captivated by how strange it looked. Then, meeting Zero’s eyes to ask for permission and receiving a small nod, she reached out to touch him. At first, her touch wasn’t erotic, just experimental and curious, exploring his soft velvet flesh. She ran her fingers down the thick shaft, over the pulsing vein, gingerly fondled his hanging balls, and then caressed the weeping head. She listened to his stifled sounds of pleasure and then became the minx.

She licked him, her nose wrinkling at the salty taste. 

Zero twined his fingers in her hair. “You don’t have to,” he breathed out.

She ignored the taste and engulfed him in her mouth, her small hand wrapped around the base of him. He groaned, his fingers working against her scalp. He guided her pace a moment and then let her go to it. His fingers traced a path down her shoulders and back, massaging and teasing until she could hardly think. 

Yuuki pulled away, panting. “Zero.”

He lay down beside her on the bed, wrapping his arm over her hips. 

“Will you kiss me?” she asked, her hand still resting on his throbbing erection.

He did, even letting his tongue snake into her mouth. He didn’t mind the taste of himself, not mingled with her. His free hand snaked between her thighs, gently stroking her slick folds. She whimpered, pressing eagerly against his touch, pleadingly. He pushed one finger into her, feeling the soaking heat. 

“Are you ready?” he asked her, candlelight playing in his amethyst eyes.

She nodded, blushed, and then spread her legs slowly. First, he took a condom from the nightstand, tore the foil open, and rolled it on himself, flushing to the roots of his hair as she watched him closely and curiously. Then, Zero leaned over her, his lips meeting hers, his chest just brushing her nipples. She shuddered, wrapping her arms around him tightly, suddenly afraid. Kaname had scared her, not forever, but just a little.

“Don’t worry,” Zero whispered, kissing her pulse again. “Just say the word and I’ll stop.”

She nodded again. “I’m alright.”

He rubbed between her folds, finding her entrance, and then pushed slowly inside her. She clawed into his back, wincing, as he slowly filled her. Her virgin barrier broke with an unpleasant gush of wetness and she cried out softly. Then, fully inside her, he stopped moving, waiting while Yuuki’s small body adjusted to the girth of him. It was the first time Zero was actually happy his penis was on the small side. He didn’t want to hurt her, ever, even for this, even knowing it would be fleeting. He had probably been more afraid of taking her virginity than she had been of giving it to him. 

She shifted beneath him, rolling her hips. “You can move, Zero. I’m okay,” she said, angling her chin for a kiss.

He gave her one, deep and gentle, pouring his love into her like an apology for the pain he had caused her.

Yuuki threaded her fingers through his hair and then hugged him tightly. “Please,” she said again. “I’m ready.”

He nodded and that first thrust into her was like an addicting drug. Once he started moving, he just couldn’t stop. She felt so good—so tight and hot, her muscles clenching around him, her small breasts bouncing, her beautiful face flushed with pleasure. Each movement made her gasp out his name and he didn’t think his strange name had ever sounded so good. It was everything he had ever wanted and more, but it was over too quickly.

Sated, they lay together in his bed, roses and candles all around them, soft music playing somewhere, and the sheets twisted over their naked bodies. Yuuki nestled into Zero’s side, his arms wrapping tightly around her small body while he softened inside her.

“Zero, thank you,” she whispered, her voice soft and sleepy. “Can we be like penguins?”

“What?” he asked, wondering if something had gone to her head.

“You know, mated for life?” she asked.

Zero chuckled. “I love you,” he said instead.

She looked up into his eyes, tears brimming in the corners, and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

He smiled softly, smoothing her hair back from her face and cradling her against his side. He was so wonderful, so beautiful, so gentle and caring. He had given her a perfect dreamy fantasy to remember and treasure always. And he loved her. 

Yuuki Cross was overjoyed.

X X X

(1) I envisioned this dress as the one from the opening sequence of Vampire Knight.

For some reason, this reminded me of Rascal Flatts’ song, “God Bless the Broken Road.” I’m not sure why. 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	5. Because the Night

Inspired by all the versions of “Because the Night.” Man, music is really inspiring the chapters of this story.

Summary: By day, she had to pretend to be his perfect wife. But, by night, she was able to do as she pleased. Because the night belonged to lovers and lust.

X X X

Kaname walked down the hall, bone-tired from a hard day of work. He was looking forward to a hot bath and then curling up beside his sweet wife, but it was dark outside the windows and he realized that none of that was going to happen. Walking towards him from the other end of the hall was the servant boy, Zero, head lowered, clearly hoping to get around Kaname before the man realized where he was headed. But Kaname already knew where Zero was going, just like he knew Yuuki wasn’t going to be waiting for him in their marriage bed. 

Helpless hopeless rage swelled in Kaname’s veins and he lashed out wildly at Zero as they passed each other. His fist caught the younger man in the side of the head and Kaname wondered for a moment if his punch was going to leave a mark on Zero’s pale face. 

It didn’t matter, he decided as Zero crashed into the wall, one hand going to his face in surprise. 

Those pale eyes gazed up at Kaname, guilty and sorrowful, but just as helpless as Kaname was. Yuuki… she had monopolized both these nearly-grown men and neither of them were able to escape the allure of her. She was like a drug—once you had a taste, that was it. They would to anything to keep coming back to her. 

When it first started, Kaname had wanted to just get rid of Zero, to get rid of the temptation for Yuuki, send him as far from the house as possible, but the Kiryuus had worked for the Kurans for years. Even as servants, they were practically part of the family. 

Zero had to stay.

Yuuki was Kaname’s wife.

They both loved her and wanted her.

She somehow kept her arms around both of them.

It was hopeless, helpless, and a little bit sick. And so… the agreement had begun.

Because the night belonged to lovers and the bright day belonged to keeping up appearances.

Kaname turned away from Zero and stalked his way down the hall, slamming himself into the empty bedroom he shared with Yuuki after she finished with Zero each night. 

In the hallway, Zero scraped himself off the floor, cupping his hand to his cheek and wishing he had the power to stop all this. It was wrong. He was sleeping with the wife of his boss and everyone knew it, but he… he couldn’t stop. He loved her and he felt that she loved him more than she loved Kaname. As long as it was like that, he would never be able to leave.

Yuuki was waiting for him in his room, looking so out of place in her exquisitely expensive lingerie on his patched quilt. She was the lady of the house and he was the servant, yet here she was and her husband was just down the hall in his empty marriage bed. 

It was so wrong, but…

“Zero,” she whispered and smiled at him, reaching out so that her breasts swelled over the satin cups of her transparent bra. 

But it didn’t matter because he loved her and he wanted her and the night… the night was theirs. 

He lowered his hand from his throbbing face and came into her arms, letting her feather kisses all over his face and throat. Then, he found the developing bruise from Kaname’s knuckles, the imprint of the wedding ring hot on his face.

“Oh, baby,” she whispered, her fingers gently touching the heavy mark. “He can’t hurt you now.”

He didn’t speak, just let her kiss him and touch him until all blood and coherent thought had left his mind. His erection felt like iron, throbbing in time with his racing heartbeat, as she ghosted her hand over him and pried a whimper of desire from his throat. She made quick work of his clothing, tossing everything into the corner of his room in a heap. Then, she descended on him, purring deep in her chest. She engulfed him in her hot mouth, sucking and licking vigorously until he was nearly to the knife’s edge of his orgasm.

Then, she tightened her fingers around the base, cutting off his seed. He whimpered, ready to beg. Sometimes, she liked that, liked to see how far she could make him go, to see how much power she had over him. But she didn’t ask him to beg. Instead, her grip tight enough to prevent him from cumming, she continued to stroke and lick. It was torture and Zero desperately dragged his fingers through her hair, trying to show her how much he wanted this. 

As if unaware of his touch, Yuuki continued her torturous pleasure until his manhood was bright red and straining wildly. If she didn’t let him cum soon, he was going to implode. With one hand, the other still tight around his base, Yuuki unfastened her bra and peeled off her panties. Naked, she pressed their bodies together, pinning his throbbing cock between their thighs. Her grip… if she would only let go and give him one stroke, he would be like a bomb going off.

“Zero,” she purred sensuously. “How badly do you want it?”

He could even form the words.

She pressed their mouths together, her tongue dominating his and salty with the taste of his erection. Then, she released his cock, her hands tangling in his silvery hair and pulling has face closer in a dominating kiss. Then, she scooted her body down and back up again, wetness on her thighs, heat between her legs, teasing him. That was all it took. Zero exploded, wracked by an orgasm so powerful it was almost painful. His hot seed splattered between them like icing between the layers of a cake.

Yuuki sat back, straddling his lower thighs, and looked down at the semen splattered all over the front of their bodies. “Messy,” she remarked and then dragged her finger tantalizingly through the sticky seed. She brought her finger to her lips and licked it slowly, her eyes mischievous and sexy as she stared at him. Then, she drew her finger into her mouth, parting her lips so he could see her tongue and teeth, so he could see the flash of her throat as she swallowed his cum. 

Then, she dragged her finger once again down his chest, gathering more seed. “Here,” she said to him, holding her finger before his face, “Taste your love for me.” A small giggle escaped her mouth as he gazed up at her, mouth watering.

She was so beautiful, like a goddess—her nipples the color of rose petals, her skin like fresh cream, her eyes and hair melted chocolate. She was so beautiful and, though he was disgusted, he couldn’t tell her no. He opened his mouth, accepting her seed-covered finger inside. The taste was completely salty and he wrinkled his nose, trying to focus on the texture of her skin on his tongue. 

She giggled again. “I can’t believe you’d taste yourself, Zero. You deserve a reward.”

He licked his lips and swallowed, trying to get the taste from his mouth. She leaned down and kissed him, her hot tongue snaking into his mouth but she tasted like him as well. He ran his hand down her side and cupped her buttocks, his fingers probing at her soaking entrance. 

“Do you want me, Zero?” she asked him, her breasts brushing his chest. She didn’t wait for him to answer and crawled up his body, crouching over his face so that her sex was right above his mouth. She parted her slick lips with her fingers, pinching her clit with a moan. “Do it,” she whispered. “Lick me.”

He did, plunging into her eagerly to ride him mouth of the taste of himself. He drank her juices, thrusting his tongue inside her and licking her clenching walls. She was toying with her clitoris, her head thrown back, moaning, and it never took him much time to bring her to her peek. With a cry of his name, her orgasm rocked her and he covered her she with his mouth, drinking everything she was willing to give him. For a little longer, while Yuuki recovered, panting, she remained crouched over his face, letting him lick her folds. 

Then, she slid down his body. Though it had only been a few minutes since his orgasm, he was hard as a rock again. She tapped the side of his cock, watching the shudder of pleasure pass through him. Then, without further ado, she straddled him and pushed him slowly deep inside her, moaning as he filled and stretched her small body. 

Impaled, she didn’t even take a moment to adjust to his size before she began moving, bouncing up and down on his cock.

Zero grasped her hips to steady her, lifted her just a little, and took over. He didn’t so much thrust as lunge into her, his hips slamming upwards to meet hers so hard and fast that it sounded like applause. Her juices ran down his cock, her hands tangled in his hair, and she leaned down to kiss him. They each tasted like the other, but neither cared anymore. 

It was night, a time of lovers and lust and cheating. 

With one final deep thrust and a moan that might have been her name, Zero spilled his hot seed inside her, feeling that run down his cock as well, mixing with her juices.   
Panting, Yuuki lay on his chest, the semen drying between their skin.

Finally, though, she kissed his semen-splattered chest, right over his heart, and then pecked a kiss on the side of his lips. “Is this cruel to you both, I wonder,” she said more to herself than to him so he didn’t answer, but she must have found the answer in his pale eyes because she left without kissing him again. 

Naked, she vanished from his bedroom, leaving her lingerie behind for him to bring to her later when she would have him again, surely. Because, at night, he could never tell her no. Night was their time together.

Kaname was awake, sitting up in the bed, working himself with both hands when Yuuki entered their room, naked as the day she was born. Her chest was covered in drying semen, her thighs painted similarly, her mouth swollen from kisses, and her vagina glistening with the wetness of her orgasm. She looked like a succubus and she really was one, he supposed.

Her hips swaying lewdly, she sauntered to the bed and crawled up his legs, kissing his thighs. When she reached his cock, she kissed the head and snaked out her tongue to lick. He groaned, unable to remember the last time she had come to him at night. Not that it mattered, she had already been with Zero tonight and she would be with him again later, Kaname was certain.

She kissed up his chest, but he turned his face away before she could kiss him. God only knew where her mouth had been on Zero and judging by the semen-splattered state of her body, Zero had been all over her as well.

“Don’t you want me?” she purred.

Kaname met her eyes, seeing the seductress inside those chocolate orbs. Yes, he wanted her and she knew that. He loved her wholly and completely and he also desired her like her desired nothing else in his life. Why else would he tolerate her cheating on him with Zero? Anger filled Kaname’s chest again, just like when he had struck Zero earlier, but he would never hit Yuuki. 

Instead, he tossed her down on her stomach on the bed and slammed into her from behind, digging his fingers into her hips hard enough to bruise, but she never cried out in pain. Zero’s leftover seed squished around Kaname’s cock, mingling with Yuuki’s juices into a cocktail of two men’s helpless love for the succubus-woman-child Yuuki. A shudder went through Kaname and he slammed into her harder and harder and harder. Finally, his orgasm wracked her and the seed dripped out of her and onto the sheets.

Himself and Zero, both inside Yuuki. If she ever had a child, there would be no way of knowing whose it would be.

Yuuki rolled onto her back, her cheeks flushed pink and her eyes glazed with pleasure. She was so beautiful, so so beautiful. He couldn’t even find it in him to hate her for doing this to him, for coming to their marriage bed covered in and filled with Zero’s cum. He loved her and he desired her, just like Zero did only sometimes, he felt as if she loved Zero more and was only with Kaname for the life and the prestige. But it didn’t matter…

Kaname kissed her gently and Yuuki smiled up at him for a moment before leaving the room. Surely, she was going back to Zero’s bed where she would spend the night having hi in every position imaginable. Quietly, the door clicked closed and the night remained dark and cool outside the windows. But this was okay—because the night belonged to lovers and lust and them.

X X X

I wanted to make Yuuki the bad guy because I’ve been being so mean to Kaname lately and I do like his character. BUT, even though Kaname had sex with Yuuki in this chapter, I do NOT support Kaname and Yuuki together. This is still lemons for YUUKI AND ZERO with Kaname around to make things complex.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	6. High School and Prom

For YukixVampire. (Second time’s the charm.) Inspired by Taylor Swift’s song, “You Belong with Me” (for her) and by Toy-Box’s “Best Friend” (for me).

Summary: The Kiryuus and Crosses have always been neighbors. Zero and Yuuki had always been friends, until high school, until prom…

X X X

For as long as Zero Kiryuu could remember, the Crosses had lived next door to his family. Things had changed over the years. The old sycamore tree between the houses had died and been chopped down and hauled away through collective efforts between the Kiryuus and Crosses. Mr. and Mrs. Cross had gotten divorced and Mrs. Cross had moved away, leaving her beautiful daughter with her husband. Zero’s own parents had had some hardships, but managed to stay together. 

But one thing was always a constant, the Crosses and Kiryuus had always been neighbors. Mrs. Cross and Mrs. Kiryuu had even gotten pregnant around the same time though Mrs. Cross was two weeks late. With that kind of closeness, it was practically a given that the families’ children would be friends. Sure enough, Yuuki, Zero, and Zero’s twin brother, Ichiru, were known as the Three Musketeers. Throughout their youth, they were always together, but high school had split them up.

Yuuki was dating their school’s popular jock, the captain of the basketball team, and all-around handsome guy, Kaname Kuran. 

Ichiru had taken up art and sculpture, music and drama, all led by the beautiful teacher, Miss Shizuka Hiou. 

And Zero… well, he was kind of a lone wolf—unpopular and not very well-liked.

Even so, when the much-changed families (sans one Mrs. Cross) still got together for weekend barbecues and block parties, it was as if nothing had changed with the onset of high school. They were all still best friends, even if Ichiru was now much smarter, even if Yuuki had grown breasts and was more beautiful than ever, even if Zero had filled out from that scrawny little kid he had once been. Only one thing had truly changed. 

Zero had fallen in love with Yuuki…

After the big sycamore had been chopped down, his bedroom window was now eye to eye with Yuuki’s. Sometimes, he saw her dancing around in her room, singing into her hairbrush, laughing with her friends, but he always looked away when he glimpsed her changing. His mother had raised a gentleman, after all. He was sure she sometimes peered in at him too. Surreptitiously watching her, he hadn’t realized just how ass over teakettle he had fallen for her.

On one such night, Zero noticed Yuuki was in her room, talking on her phone with a lot of arm-waving and shouting even though he couldn’t hear her voice. Finally, she hung up, threw her phone down on the bed, and sat down heavily beside it. For a moment, she looked like she was trying to pull herself together, but failed. Tears slowly dripped down her cheeks.

Zero fumbled around his desk, searching for his phone so he could call and ask if she was alright, but he couldn’t find it anywhere. Where the devil had it gotten to? All he found was a note from Ichiru—‘Bro, my phone died. I borrowed yours. Love ya!’ 

“Great,” Zero muttered, staring at the note, but it did give him an idea. He quickly grabbed a notebook and a marker and scribbled down a message to Yuuki. ‘Are you okay?’ Then, he held it up to the window, smiling at her so she didn’t think he was being creepy.

Yuuki smiled through her tears and wiped her face with her hands. Then, she bustled around, seeking out some paper and a pen as well. ‘Kaname’s being a jerk,’ she wrote back, another tear trailing down her cheek.

‘I’m sorry,’ he penned.

‘What’s with the paper?’ Yuuki asked.

Zero scowled and wrote, ‘Ichiru took my phone.’

Yuuki laughed, her face lighting up on the other side of the glass.

His own lips curved in response to her happiness.

‘Thanks, Zero,’ Yuuki scribbled down, so fast that it was hardly legible. ‘You’re cute.’

The tops of his ears burned at the compliment from his long-time crush. Maybe he should tell her how he felt, just wrote down those three simple words and show her, but… Yuuki set down the paper and then pulled her curtains closed, walling Zero off from her bedroom. He sighed heavily, set down the pad of paper and the pen. Oh well, they weren’t meant to be anyway. She was with Kaname and she clearly belonged with him. She did not belong with Zero.

…

Prom was approaching and the school was in a frenzied state. Couples were freaking out, fighting, and crying left and right. Girls were in a state over their dresses, shoes, makeup, and jewelry. Guys were at the end of their ropes, ready for everything to just be over. Then, there was a small collection of people, Zero included, who were rather calm over the whole thing for one big reason—they weren’t going.

Zero was eating lunch, alone in the park behind the school, when he saw Yuuki stalk out of the school into the soccer fields. She had her arms wrapped around herself tightly, clearly trying not to cry. A moment later, Kaname came out as well, following her and clearly very exasperated with his girlfriend.

“Yuuki, wait,” Kaname called. “Can we talk about this?”

“No!” she shouted at him. “How can you take two dates to the Prom?”

“Ruka and I have been friends for years, Yuuki,” he protested. “When we were younger, I always promised that I’d take her. It doesn’t mean anything!”

“Yes it does!” she yelled, whirling on him. “I know how you look at her! You’re just trying to keep me around because you can’t decide between us.”

“Yuuki,” he began, reaching out for her.

“No!” She slapped his hands away. “No! Don’t touch me! You have to choose one of us!”

“How can you ask me to chose between my childhood friend and you? That isn’t fair, Yuuki,” Kaname argued. “I haven’t tried to make you choose between me and those Kiryuu twins, have I?”

She glared at him. “This isn’t about me! I made a choice and I chose you!”

“I saw you talking to Ichiru yesterday!”

“About my dress,” Yuuki snapped. “He’s an artist!”

“So, choose, Yuuki, between those Kiryuus or me!”

“That’s not fair! We’re just friends.”

“Just like Ruka and I are,” Kaname insisted. 

Yuuki grit her teeth and then pulled out the big guns. She hadn’t wanted to believe it when Yori told her she saw Ruka and Kaname together, talking, laughing, hugging… kissing… “Yori saw you,” Yuuki said, leaving it vague to gauge his reaction.

Kaname narrowed his eyes. “With Ruka?”

Yuuki nodded. 

“Listen, Yuuki, it was a one time thing, Ruka was upset and she’s on the pill and we used a condom.”

Yuuki’s eyes flew open wide. “Y-you’ve been cheating on me with her?”

Kaname realized his error. “No, I—”

She slapped him and Zero heard the sound of it all the way where he was sitting. “It’s over,” Yuuki hissed. “We’re over.”

“Yuuki—”

“No!” she snarled and turned to walk off.

Kaname grabbed her arm, his mouth open to say something, his mahogany eyes strange. Yuuki stared at him, her lips pressed into a hard line. Zero started to get up, to intervene, but then something seemed to pass between them. Kaname released her, Yuuki turned, and they both walked away from each other. Silence stretched through the sunny afternoon. Only one thought was prevalent in Zero’s head—Yuuki didn’t belong with Kaname.

…

Prom night descended on the two houses that used to be divided by a large sycamore tree. Yuuki’s curtains had been closed while she donned her prom dress and Ichiru’s were wide open while he put on his tuxedo. Zero was lying on his bed in jeans and a t-shirt, pretending to study. 

Across the windows, Yuuki’s thin violet curtains opened and then she lifted a sheet of paper, grinning at Zero. It read—‘Are you going to the dance?’

He smiled, rummaged for his own pad and marker, and wrote, ‘No. I’m studying. Have fun.’

She frowned, a line appearing between her brows. ‘I wish you were.’

Zero shrugged, watching Yuuki as she milled through her room gathering the last of her things and fixing her hair a final time. 

She looked so beautiful, words couldn’t even describe. Her lovely chocolate tresses were scraped back off her neck, pinned with several onyx and ruby dragonfly clips. Around her throat, she was wearing a matching necklace that hung down between her small breasts. The dress only accented her stunning body. The sweetheart neckline was beaded with black stones, the ruffled cummerbund waistband decorated with silk poppies, and the short red skirt was over-layed with a sheer black lace also patterned with poppies. On her feet, she wore practical black ballet flats that laced up her long sleek legs. (1) Then, she gave Zero a wave and a smile and left her bedroom. She was probably going with some girlfriends, date or no.

There was a knock on Zero’s bedroom door and Ichiru peeked his head in, looking dashing and debonair in his black tuxedo with silver-violet accents. “Hey, Zero,” the young artist said. “What’s with a jeans?”

“I told you three times I’m not going, Ichiru,” Zero grumbled.

“Yuuki’s going to be there and she’s all alone, unattached, single, and gorgeous. I’m sure some other guy is going to just snap her right up,” Ichiru teased his twin.

Zero glared at him.

“Fine, sit in your room and sulk then,” Ichiru said. He adjusted his silver-violet tie in the mirror and headed out to the prom just like Yuuki.

Zero sat in the dark, sulking, just like Ichiru had said for several minutes. He stared through the glass at Yuuki’s bedroom on the other side of where the large sycamore used to be. She had looked so beautiful and she had broken up with Kaname. 

Maybe he should… 

Zero opened his closet and looked in at his clothes. Hanging there, patiently, was the suit his mother had bought for him. The silky red accents shone softly, like spilled blood or a beating heart. He pulled the suit from the closet, gazed at it, and then began to dress.

…

Ichiru made his way through the crowd, searching for Yuuki. He had helped her pick out a dress, telling her what color would go best with her dark eyes and pale skin and chocolate tresses. Sometimes, being an artist had its perks, even if it didn’t help him land girls. Finally, he found her with her friend Sayori Wakaba, laughing animatedly. 

“Hey Yuuki,” Ichiru said.

She turned to face him, smiling beautifully. “Hey Ichiru. You look great!”

“Thanks. You do too. Could I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

Yuuki nodded, excused herself from Yori, and followed Ichiru outside. “What’s up?”

Ichiru sighed. “We’ve been friends a long time, haven’t we?”

“Forever,” Yuuki said. “We couldn’t be closer if we were born together.”

Ichiru chuckled. “I know, but Yuuki… do you know how Zero feels about you?”

Yuuki glanced away, biting her lip. 

“You do, don’t you?”

“I’ve… had my suspicions.”

“Well?” Ichiru asked.

Yuuki fiddled with her dress. “I don’t know, Ichiru.”

“I heard about your fight with Kaname.”

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“What about Zero? He’s been waiting… forever, since the tree was chopped down.”

Yuuki stared at Ichiru and absently fixed his white rose boutonniere. “I…”

“Zero cares,” he explained.

“I know he does. Just… let him tell me, okay, Ichiru?”

He embraced her lightly. “That sounds fair.”

“Thanks.”

As far as Ichiru was concerned, he had done his share of greasing the wheels for his brother. He headed off onto the dance floor, letting the fast-paced music move him to the beat. A few girls sidled up to him, smiling and laughing, enjoying the easy way he danced with each of them.

…

Zero arrived at prom a little late, his palms sweaty and his nervous heartbeat filling his ears. He spotted Ichiru, his twin’s silver hair shining in the lights, and sought out Yuuki’s beautiful form. Then, he spotted her, standing outside alone, gazing up at the stars. Her skin was pink and flushed from dancing and she was smiling a little sadly. He came up behind her and stood there silently, waiting for her to notice his presence. She turned to face him almost immediately.

“Hey Zero. I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I changed my mind,” he murmured softly, teased by the scent of her perfume and her skin.

She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, squeezing gently. “I’m glad.”

He laid his hand over hers. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she whispered and took in the sight of him in his tux. “So do you.”

A comfortable companionable silence stretched between them as they both stood admiring the sky, listening to the hum of a slow song playing inside the dance hall. Without a word, Zero gently pulled her against him, his arms going around her thin waist. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, tangling in the soft silver hairs there. They danced slowly, Zero’s strong body cradling her and her fingers gently stroking his neck.

“Zero,” she whispered. “Ichiru told me…”

His heart skipped a beat. “What?”

She kissed the corner of his mouth, slow and lingering. “And I…”

He hugged her closer, his hands pressing her even tighter to his body.

“I feel the… same,” she finished and placed another lingering kiss on his cheek.

Zero dipped his chin and kissed her in return, soft and chaste—a first kiss.

Yuuki clung to him, her mouth more experienced and wanting. She tugged the lapels of his jacket, his hands pressing to her naked back and her breasts heaving against his strong chest. Finally, breathlessly, they broke for air, foreheads pressed together.

“I’ve waited… so long,” he whispered.

“I know,” she breathed.

“I… I care for you deeply.”

“We belong together,” she said and his heart throbbed.

“Really?” she nodded. “Kaname and I… we were both compensating for the person we really wanted, but didn’t want to risk our friendship with them. But, it’s better to love and lose than to never love at all. We decided that it’s better this way… if he’s with Ruka and I’m with you.”

Zero embraced her tightly. 

“I feel like,” she murmured, “we’ve been together forever.”

“We practically have,” he said. And it was true, in his life there was only one thing that never changed, the Crosses had always lived next door to his family. And since the big sycamore tree had been cut down, he had been able to see into Yuuki’s life and fallen in love with her.

…

The new lovers spent the remainder of their prom together, dancing alone outside, kissing passionately, touching and embracing, loving each other—making up for lost time. Zero was so completely lost in Yuuki’s kisses and her soft touches that he was hardly aware of anything else, but like any teenage boy, his body responded for him. Yuuki felt Zero’s desire for her pressing against her stomach, insistent and hard, but he wasn’t rubbing against her. His mother had raised a gentleman, after all. 

Yuuki took his hand, leading him into a deep shadow out of sight of everyone else. “This way,” she said breathlessly.

Zero followed her, no force on earth could have made him walk away at that moment, especially when she put her back against the wall, wrapped her arms around his hips, and pulled him flush against her supple body. She rubbed against his arousal, purring softly in her throat. Zero groaned and dipped his head to capture her mouth in a deep sensual kiss.

Dress as they were and in a sort of public place, they weren’t able to undress each other or spend time on foreplay. It was a little bit rushed, but nothing was lost. Zero would remember his first time with Yuuki until the end of his life.

He lifted her in his arms, cradling her, and her legs went around his hips. Grateful for her short dress, he lifted the skirt and cupped her hot wet sex through her panties, kissing her and swallowing the moan that escaped her mouth when his thumb ghosted over her pearl.

“Hurry,” she gasped out. “I want… you, Zero…”

He didn’t have to be told twice and quickly unfastened his trousers, releasing himself. He was achingly hard and Yuuki was soaking wet when he slipped her panties aside and began to push into her. She groaned, gripping his shoulders and gasping in pleasure as he stretched and filled her. He found her lips and kissed her deeply, his tongue sneaking past her teeth as he pinned her body between himself and the wall. He released her waist and braced his hands on the wall, feeling himself slide deeper into her. The only thing holding her up was his erection impaled deeply inside her and her legs around his hips.

She moaned, a soft, “Oooh…” escaping her mouth.

“Feels good?” he breathed.

She cracked open one eye to make certain he wasn’t being cheeky, but he looked honestly curious so she smiled. “Yes… Please, move, Zero, or else I’ll—ah—melt.”

Zero cupped his hands beneath her knees, lifting her up just enough to give himself leverage. Then, he pulled out to the tip, almost completely, making Yuuki moan at the loss. Powerfully, he slammed back into her to the hilt, the head of him pressing against her womb. She clawed his back and bit her lip, whimpering as she tried to contain her moans and whispers of his name. To make it easier for her, he brought their mouths back together and kissed her deeply.

He set a pace, following the beat of the music pouring from the dance hall. He felt as if his body was dancing with Yuuki’s, their hearts twirling and blending until they were one in the same. Then, Yuuki gasped out his name in such pleasure that his ego immediately swelled. He had never imagined that he could make her feel this way.

“Yuuki,” he whispered.

“Faster,” she begged him. 

He obliged her, his pace slamming deep into her and making her breasts bounce over the edge of her bodice. She moaned again, clutching at him, her shoes digging into his ass as she tightened her legs around him. The wall was cool and rough at her back, but Zero wasn’t letting it scrape at her. Despite the fact that she was having him against the wall, out in the open, in her prom dress, did nothing to take away from the marvelous feelings coursing through her blood.

She screamed his name into his mouth in nameless pleasure as her first orgasm rocked her. Zero smirked against her lips, thrusting into her a few more times before pulling out and spilling his seed on her lower legs.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Poor aim…”

She pulled him to her and kissed him. “We belong together, Zero. You belong with me.”

X X X

(1) Here’s a picture of Yuuki’s dress for those who care, remove the spaces: promdressgirl. wordpress. c o m /2011/04/02/short-black-and-red-prom-dresses/

I don’t know why, but I’m not completely happy with this preface of prom and high school. It wasn’t deep enough for my taste. I hate writing school stuff…

Questions, comments, concerns?


	7. The Forbidden Fruit

I feel very V. C. Andrews in this chapter. Anyone read her stuff? Flowers in the Attic is so good and creepy. If you know her then you suspect what’s coming in this chapter so I don’t want to hear anyone bitching about it. Be mature or get out.

Summary: The trust between them transcends all boundaries. All of them, even the barrier of brother and sister…

X X X

She hardly felt like herself when she was like this… wrapped tightly in his warm strong arms, cradled against his thin chest, her mouth falling open beneath his lips, his warm hands worshipping her body through her clothes. When they were together, she could hardly remember the things that were important in her life. All she knew was him—as if his body and touches and kisses were the only thing that existed in her myopic world.

She moaned out his name, lips falling open and tongue darting out to mingle with his in a sloppy raw kiss. His hands threaded through her hair, cradling the back of her head and pressing her closer. It was as if he wanted to devour her. Her hands fisted in his shirt, nails scraping the skin beneath and making him shudder against her. She couldn’t remember anything. She could only feel his kiss, his touch, the nip of his teeth on her lips. It was as if he had eaten her sensible mind.

Another moan escaped her as his tongue caressed the places his small bites had stung, sucking lightly on the abused skin and then kissing over it. She could taste blood, taste him, taste herself in him. She dug her nails into his shoulders and back, wrapping her legs around his hips so that their heated groins rubbed through clothing. Each groaned, hardly able to tell where one ended and the other began. She pressed down, he thrust up at the same time—as if they were one being. She kissed him, tangling in a dance of passion. 

“Yuuki,” he groaned.

And the spell between them was broken. 

Everything she should have been aware of constantly came rushing back into her fogged brain, chasing away the cloud of hot lust and pleasure. She felt like a ship lost at sea that could suddenly hear the foghorn and see the lighthouse of the distant coast. But that sort of relief was short-lived. It was as if the ship of her mind realized there was an impenetrable reef between her and the safety of shore. She had done something wrong, screwed something up. 

Hell, she had nearly done it again.

Nearly done it with him.

Hell, again…

“Yuuki,” Zero whispered, his teeth gleaming in the low moonlight that filtered in through the trees. He was smiling faintly, but it only lasted a moment before it fell from his lips and he realized what he had done with her. 

They stared at each other, each thinking different things.

He thought of his love for her, his care, his trust, his body and hers together, his everything. He cared nothing for the rules he broke with her.

She thought only of Adam and Eve, of biting into that forbidden fruit. That’s what he was, that’s what they were together—taboo, forbidden… 

They were outside their home, hiding in the woods that surrounded the large house their loving father owned. Right, they had snuck out even though they didn’t need to be careful—not tonight. Their father was out with friends and wouldn’t be home till morning. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten into this position—in his lap, legs around his hips, skirt hiked up and tank top pulled down, flushed with want. Right, she had shivered with cold and when he put his arms around her… That had been it. 

She was lost in the sea without even the stars to guide her through the tumultuous storm.

“Yuuki,” he said again.

‘List them,’ she hissed to herself. ‘List the things you have done wrong. You can’t keep doing this… not with him.’

The one throbbing fact that she should have been aware of blazed forefront in her mind as if lit with spotlights from all angles. This boy… Zero, he was her brother. Being like this with him was taboo and forbidden. She couldn’t keep being like this with him. It was illegal, illicit, banned, and just wrong… no matter how good and right it felt inside her heart.

The second thing prickled into her awareness. She couldn’t do this with him because of what had happened to her before… back when she lived with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. She was never supposed to feel love or tenderness, no matter how twisted and wrong it was. She should have been forever scarred by what happened.   
In a way, she supposed she was. Zero was her brother.

The third and final terrible truth plowed into her like a physical blow. She was Yuuki and she was supposed to be innocent, virginal, like an untouched angel. Her father didn’t know what had happened at her mother’s house. Not even Zero knew though she suspected he had been able to guess parts of it. It was her secret, another forbidden and disgraceful terrible thing. 

Her life seemed filled with wrongs.

Zero, her brother, her lover.

Her mother’s boyfriend, what had happened.

Shuddering, she pushed away from him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The night air was chilly on her flushed skin and her nipples pebbled with the cold. Zero reached to embrace her, to cradle her to his warmth and kiss her again, but she prevented him. She held him at arm’s length, staring into his face with her wide tragic eyes. 

Wrong… this was wrong.

“Yuuki?” he asked and his pale amethyst eyes shone in the darkness. 

His lips were slightly swollen with the desperate force of their kisses and she had no desire to know what her own mouth looked like. Did his kisses linger on her skin? Hiding in the right-hand corner of her mouth like kisses did in the story of Peter Pan? Again, she wiped it with the back of her hand.

Without a word, she got up from his lap and straightened her clothes. “We should go inside, Zero,” she said, her voice hard and bitter, still edged with desire. “It’s going to rain soon.” And the sky was cloudy and the air was wet so it wasn’t a complete lie. Maybe it would rain. Maybe lighting would strike her down for the forbidden things she had done.

He reached out to touch her, but she danced away. “Yuuki,” he began, but she interrupted him.

“It’s getting late. I still have to shower. Let’s go in,” she said and walked away, her hips swaying in that way that both infuriated and aroused him. It was as if her body said, ‘Come on, I want you to look,’ but her hands and words were always pushing him away.

He knew their relationship was wrong—they were siblings, for heaven’s sake—but he was past caring.

Zero shoved his hands into his pockets and followed, wincing as the fabric of his rough trousers rubbed against his sensitive erection. It seemed… the pain of loving her just never stopped. When she wasn’t hurting him. He was hurting himself, however inadvertently. He sighed heavily and watched his sister move through the darkened forest like a huntress or maybe the hunted instead. Their house glowed like a beacon through the woods, empty with their father out for the night. Yuuki vanished inside without waiting for Zero and she had already closed herself in the bathroom by the time he entered the house.

Yuuki leaned against the cool bathroom wall, tears burning in her eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly, whimpering softly as the phantom pain of a broken heart speared through her fragile body. She slid down the wall and pulled her knees against her chest, burying her face within them, and sobbed for all the wrongness in her life.

Zero was on his way to his room to work his erection out with his own hand, but then he heard his sister sobbing on the other side of the bathroom door and hesitated. He wanted to reach out to her, but she was always pushing him away. If he tried to touch her now, she would just put up her quills and hurt him. He stood there, listening to her cries and feeling his heart break inside. He was her older brother. He was supposed to protect her, to help her, to love her—even if his love for her was the wrong kind of love. Steeling himself, he reached out and turned the knob, expecting it to be locked, but it wasn’t.

Yuuki trusted him completely, wholly, and totally.

Zero peeked in the bathroom and spotted her crumpled on the floor, arms wrapped around herself tightly and small fragile body wracked with sobs. He crouched before her, gently laying his palm against the tender side of her face and brushing his thumb beneath her eyes. For a moment, she wondered if she had been crying, but Zero’s thumb came away dry. 

“Yuuki, are you okay?”

She sobbed something resembling his name and reached out to him almost desperately. He took her into his arms, cradling her to his chest in a hug. Then, he sat down and leaned his back against the vanity cabinets, pulling her comfortably into his lap. With his lips and hands, he calmed her until she was reduced to quiet sniffles.

“Zero,” she whispered.

He jolted, his arms tightening around her small form. It had been so long since she had spoken his name. “Yeah?” he breathed.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

“For what?” he asked her, stroking her soft chocolate tresses.

“For… everything…”

He tucked his fingers under her chin and lifted her lips to his. She leaned towards him, her breath hot and soft, but their lips just barely brushed before she pulled away from him again. She pressed her face into the front of her brother’s shirt, her shoulders shaking with pain.

“It isn’t fair,” she whispered.

He rubbed her back, patient with her, tender and careful with her. “What isn’t?”

“It isn’t fair,” Yuuki breathed. “It’s not right that the only person I can trust is you. It’s wrong how much I trust you, Zero.”

He shuddered at the sound of his name falling from her lips. “Yuuki, I…”

“Zero, it’s wrong how close we are,” she said softly. “We’re siblings.”

This time, he cupped her face and didn’t allow her to pull away from him. His kiss was gentle and soft, his tongue just as tender as he probed into her open mouth, and his fingers threaded through the short silken hair. For a moment, she struggled to escape his kiss, but she soon melted into him. Her arms twined around his neck, her legs around his hips, and moaned softly. She felt so perfect in his arms, like a missing piece of the puzzle. And she was just as wonderful as she had been in his arms earlier in the night.

Finally, panting, the kiss broke between them. Yuuki snuggled into his arms, her body soft and pliant in his grasp. Zero smelled so delicious—the scent of his skin and hair, a faint cologne, and something completely earthy. She decided it was time she told Zero the truth, the truth about everything that had happened and that she had done.

“Zero,” she whispered. “I can’t trust anyone other than you.”

He tucked her head under his chin. “Why?”

Her fingers tightened in his shirt. “Do you remember… after Mom and Dad got divorced?”

Zero nodded. After their parents’ divorce, it was decided that they would each take one child. Zero stayed in this house with their father and Yuuki left with their mother. It was hard for them to be apart, though they had been more like siblings and less like lovers in that time. Then, suddenly, Yuuki came to live with their father and Zero in some strange half-shattered state. It was a week before she allowed her father or Zero to even hug her. She never said what had happened, but Zero had a feeling he knew.

Yuuki sniffled, burrowing within the shelter of his body. “I can only trust you, Zero.”

He hushed her. “Tell me why.”

She shuddered. “When I lived with Mom, I… I somehow… seduced her boyfriend… He… took me and Mom… decided I had to go…”

Zero tightened his arms around her. “How could you seduce a grown man, Yuuki?”

She trembled. “I don’t know. I didn’t think I did, but… when he took me, he said it was… my fault.”

He cradled her tightly, stroking her hair. “He lied, Yuuki. It wasn’t your fault. It could never be your fault,” Zero whispered. He didn’t let her dwell on it anymore, only kissed   
her gently on the lips until all thoughts of it had left her mind. Or so he had hoped.

When they broke apart for air, she whispered, “It’s wrong, Zero, but I can only trust you. We’ve been together forever and I know you’ll never hurt me…”

He nodded. “I won’t.”

For a long time, she remained in his arms, snuggled tightly in his lap with his body enveloping her like a shelter. The scent of his skin wrapped around her, his breath stirred her hair, the heat of his body seeped into her cold one, and she had never felt so safe or loved. Occasionally, he dipped his head and kissed her gingerly. 

Sometimes, the kiss deepened to the point that liquid heat rushed between her legs. Other times, the kiss could have been the gentle peck of a mere brother.

She slipped her hands beneath his shirt, fingers exploring the toned plane of his stomach. His skin was so warm and soft, like living velvet, and she was suddenly aware of his erection beneath her thighs. He wanted her completely and she loved him. Even though it was the ultimate taboo, the worst atrocity they could commit, she suddenly wanted it like nothing she had ever wanted before. Zero’s body shuddered beneath her fingers as if hearing her thoughts.

Yuuki pried herself from his lap and then helped him to his feet as best she could. In the small bathroom, they were nearly pressed chest to chest. “Shower with me,” she whispered. “Just like when we were younger, Zero.”

He nodded, unable to resist her for anything. 

In silence, Yuuki started the shower, tested the water temperature, and then began to peel off her clothes—one tantalizing layer at a time. Zero did the same though far quicker and then stood with his hand cupped over his genitals even though she had already felt his erection against her sex in the forest earlier in the night. She stepped behind the curtain and Zero tried to tell himself this was a bad idea, but as with loving her, he was beyond caring.

He stepped into the stall behind her, watching the curves of her beautiful body as she dipped her head back beneath the spray. She scrubbed her fingers through her hair and then smiled at him, squeezing some shampoo into his languid hands.

“Wash my hair for me, please.”

He palmed the shampoo and then rubbed it through her hair, working it deep into her scalp until the lather was thick. His erection was even thicker and harder now, if possible, aroused further by both her nudity and the soft sounds of pleasure that escaped her as he washed her hair.

“Finished,” he panted.

She smiled. “Thanks. Now, let me take care of you.”

Fire rushed to his groin. Was she going to…? But she only squeezed shampoo into her palm and began to wash his hair as well. Zero groaned, feeling her breasts brushing against his naked back. She scrubbed his hair, lowering her hands to massage his shoulders and neck until he was nothing more than putty.

Then, she spoke those most tantalizing words. “Zero,” she whispered. “Wash me, please?”

He turned to face her in the small shower stall, taking in the sight of her beautiful naked body. She had changed a lot since their last bath together as children. Now, her small breasts were like ripe peaches, her nipples pale pink and hardened into sensitive peaks. Her belly was flat, the curve of her ribs beautifully shadowed, her hips slender, legs long and lean and coltish, and her figure was that of an hourglass. Between her thighs, her sex was flushed and damp, shaved perfectly. The water glossed all over her skin, a few suds clinging to her shoulders and thighs. He had never seen a more beautiful creature, even in magazines. To think this was his own sister.

“Won’t you?” she asked softly, holding the bar of soap in her hands.

He nodded almost eagerly and took the soap from her. She smiled at him, her chestnut eyes closing as she waited for him to bathe her luscious body. Zero swallowed, his mouth alternately going dry and filling at the thought of touching her. He rubbed the bar in his hands, trying to relax and not focus on the throb of his erection tucked tightly between his legs. When the soap was lathered, he set down the bar and started with her shoulders.

Yuuki sighed, leaning back against him so he couldn’t wash her back as he had been planning to. He swallowed and then trailed his hands down her chest, cupping her small breasts reverently. A sound escaped her as his fingers ran over her nipples and then pinched lightly. Her ass pressed back against him as if in reflex, straining to push her breasts farther into his hands. Continuing to fondle one breast, he ran his hand down her belly, but hesitated.

She gasped slightly, her hips rocking against his palm even though he wasn’t close to her sex. It was all the encouragement he needed to reach down and cup her fully. She was soaked, drenched, dripping, and it wasn’t all water. She moaned softly as his soap-slicked fingers slid through her throbbing hot folds and teased her entrance. He flicked her clit between his fingers, making her whimper and buck against him. His other hand left her breast and found its way between her legs from behind.

He began his slow heated torture. His hand at the front of her body teased, twisted, and rubbed her clit, mingling with the occasional random beat of water from the showerhead that made her shudder on the edge of an orgasm. His hand behind had slipped two fingers deep inside and were steadily pumping in and out of her soaking sex. All that was holding her up were his two strong arms. Her legs were like jelly, her body soft and warm. She fell into him completely.

“Zero, please,” was all she said.

He knew what she wanted because he wanted it too, but they were… brother and sister… He couldn’t be inside her. Even this was on the abyss of total wrongness and he didn’t care, but he knew she did. He would have to settle for something else and so would she. There was a small bottle of body wash on the edge of the tub that was about the thickness of a normal cock though far longer—it was a rather strange bottle—but perfect for his endeavor.

Removing his fingers, he picked up the bottle, loving how she moaned at the loss of his fingers inside her. He rubbed the bottle through her slick folds, found her entrance, and pushed it slowly deep inside her. She rose onto her toes, moaning, as the cool plastic shaft filled her mercilessly until it kissed the entrance of her womb. But… why hadn’t Zero taken her? Why would he had used the bottle? She could feel his erection pressing against her buttocks even now.

“Zero,” she began.

But he wiggled the bottle from side to side inside her and coupled that motion with a pinch and flick of her clit. She gasped out, her body seizing in his grasp. The orgasm lingered just out of reach, but she knew she would only need a little bit more to plummet over the edge of the abyss. He pulled the bottle out a little and then thrust inside her deeply, lifting her foot onto the edge of the tub to give himself better access to her throbbing soaking pussy. 

The water beat on her sex, teasing and tormenting her clit along with Zero’s fingers. She squirmed against him, whining intelligibly as his thrusts into her with that bottle became faster, deeper, harder beyond the pace any mortal cock could set. She moaned and threw her head back, her mouth falling open. Zero captured her lips in his own, his tongue darting in, and the orgasm stole all thoughts of taboo and wrongness from her mind. 

Nothing that felt that good could ever be wrong—never!

With a cry, she sagged into Zero’s arms and he palmed the bottle, keeping it pressed inside her as her muscles seized and tightened around it. He slumped into the bottom of the tub, holding her naked body in his lap and absently stroking her exposed skin while he waited for her to catch her breath. His own organ was throbbing in desperate need for release, but he made no move to take either her or it into his hands. He just cradled her, kissing her.

“Why… didn’t you take me?” she whispered, her voice almost lost to the sound of the shower.

“Could I?” he whispered. “Even though I’m your… brother?”

She nodded. “I don’t care anymore. I… love you, Zero. I trust you.”

He let the bottle slide out of her and she cried out softly, moaning and writhing as it left her sensitive cavern empty. She panted, spreading her legs for Zero, but the truth of the matter was… it’s incredibly hard to have sex in the shower. The walls and floor her wet and slippery. Zero couldn’t get a purchase to move and the tub was too cramped to allow her to do the moving. With a groan of frustration, Zero got them both to their feet and threw back the curtain. 

Water splattered on the floor as he stepped out and pulled Yuuki with him. Immediately, he caught her mouth in an animal kiss, backing her against the vanity and devouring her with his hands and lips. She moaned, rubbing her hips against his straining erection. He lifted her onto the vanity, her legs immediately spreading to welcome him. He fit between her hips perfectly, maybe because of their shared genetics, but both were beyond caring.

“Take me,” she whispered.

He didn’t need to be told again. Spreading the lips of her sex, he found her entrance and began to push into her. She threw her head back against the mirror, moaning softly. The angle was so strange. She had never felt anything so deep inside her, not even the long bottle he had used on her in the shower. She could practically taste him in her throat. He was thicker, too, stretching her as he tortuously-slowly entered her. Then, he was completely inside her and she moaned out his name.

He pulled out to the tip, relishing how she wrapped her legs around him tightly and pleaded. Without further ado, he slammed back in to the hilt. Her breasts bounced and she wrapped her arms around his back, clutching him close. Wet skin slipped and slid, their bodies pressing closer for warmth at the loss of the heat of the shower. She clung to her brother, knowing every curve, scar, and freckle of the body she had grown up watching. He knew her as well, inside and out.

It was more than sex. It was more than coupling of siblings. It was beyond everything any normal couple could share. 

It was complete comfort and love. It didn’t matter what they were anymore. They were together and that was all that mattered.

She moaned his name, throwing her head back, as an orgasm rocked her small body. Shuddering, she clutched Zero close, her mouth eagerly finding his. He thrust a few more times, riding her orgasm, but then pulled out and his semen splattered on her thighs and chest. Panting, he wrapped her in his arms and cradled her naked body close as they both just enjoyed the afterglow of something they had wanted forever but had been forbidden from.

She shivered. “Zero, let’s get back in the shower.”

He lifted her, holding her body in his arms, and stepped back beneath the warm spray. She jolted, burrowing against the heat of his skin with a contented sigh. Then, he sat down in the tub and held her between his legs, absently fingering her dark wet hair.

“Yuuki?” he whispered, praying this time speaking her name would not break the spell between them.

It didn’t. Softly, she murmured, “Yes Zero?”

But he didn’t have anything to say. He didn’t need to confess his love for her. She already knew his feelings, even before she had known her own for him. Instead, he lowered his head and gently kissed her cheek in a brotherly peck. She angled her head to look at him and tapped her lips. When he obliged her with another kiss, she devoured him wholly until he was hard against her thighs again. 

It didn’t matter that this act was forbidden, not to her—not anymore.

X X X

I don’t want to hear anyone bitching about the incest. Get over it!

May I remind everyone that all SUGGESTIONS or REQUESTS must be sent to me in a Private Message? (Unless you DON'T have an account, in which case, send them in REVIEWS, but then you risk me completely forgetting they exist!)

Questions, comments, concerns?


	8. Her Best Friend and the Cheater

I thought of this idea when I was driving home from work and Carrie Underwood’s song “Before He Cheats” came on the radio. The strangest things inspire me sometimes… And I just want to put it on the table that I don’t hate Kaname, I just like Zero far better.

Summary: After her boyfriend cheats on her, Yuuki turns to her oldest childhood friend for comfort.

X X X

It was a literal and figurative sucker punch in the worst sense of the word. Cross Yuuki thought she’d surprise her boyfriend of almost two years, Kuran Kaname, with a booty call. She had spent the whole week digging up the courage to do such an embarrassing thing. Usually, Kaname was the one who initiated any and all sexual encounters between them, but Yuuki was nothing if not determined. It was time she put on her big girl panties and really gave her heart to her relationship.

First, she went to Victoria’s Secret—skipping school so that there was absolutely no chance she’d run into someone she knew—and bought a lacy white panty and bra set that reminded her a lot of frothy wedding cake. She also purchased a white silk robe trimmed with lace to go with it. Then, with just as much sneaking and embarrassment, she bought a package of condoms—ribbed for her own pleasure and ultra-thin for Kaname’s. She debated buying something like a sex toy but just didn’t have the courage. This was enough to get them through the night.

Yuuki blushed the entire way to Kaname’s apartment. 

She figured she’d stop in at her childhood friend, Kiryuu Zero’s apartment and change into the wedding-cake-lingerie before going upstairs to Kaname’s apartment. 

Sometimes, it was incredibly convenient to have both Zero and Kaname living in the same apartment complex. She could pop in and say hello to Zero while waiting for Kaname to come home or go to spend the night with Kaname after hanging out with zero all afternoon. Other times, it seemed awkward and Yuuki wondered if Zero could hear the bedsprings creaking.

She knocked on her best friend’s door and waited. She was probably dragging poor Zero out of bed. He worked the late shift as a waiter at a small diner down the block and went to school all day. He struggled, but he managed. A moment later, his face soft and his hair mussed with sleep, Zero answered the door. 

“Hey Yuuki,” he said and stifled a yawn. “What’s up?”

“I need to borrow your bathroom,” she said, smiling at him.

Zero spread his arms. “What’s mine is yours,” was all he said and shuffled back into his apartment. 

Yuuki entered behind him and closed the door softly. Zero had looked at the pink Victoria’s Secret bag but didn’t seem to have made the connection. He was too sleepy. “I’ll just be a minute,” Yuuki called to him.

“Take your time,” Zero said to her and sat down on the couch, his head lolling back over the cushions. He groaned, rolling his tense shoulders. “I’m beat… I shouldn’t have covered Senri’s shift.”

Yuuki ducked into the bathroom, smiling. Zero was just too nice. He could have worked eight shifts himself and still found the energy to help out a friend. He might look gruff and frightening, but Yuuki knew the truth. Zero was a sweet gentle person.

Quickly, Yuuki stripped out of her clothes and changed into the lingerie, pulling off the tags. Usually, she would always wash new underwear, but she figured she wouldn’t be wearing it for very long anyway. She glanced at herself in the mirror and blushed. This was so not her and she looked like an idiot. She almost took it off and shoved the whole plan aside. How nice would it be to just curl up against Zero’s side and watch a movie with him while he slept peacefully? But no! She had worked too hard on this to quit now.

Wrapping herself securely in the robe, she peeked out of the bathroom. Zero was still sitting on the couch, rolling his shoulders and trying to work some unknown and stubborn kink out of his muscles. Yuuki sidled up behind him and laid her hands on his shoulders. He immediately leaned back into her hands, a faint smile curving his lips.

“Yuuki, have I mentioned that you’re my angel?” Zero said blissfully as she worked her small fingers into his knotted muscles.

“You could stand to mention it more,” she teased.

He groaned as she ran her fingers through his silvery hair and rubbed his scalp. “I mean it, I love you,” he said.

Yuuki pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I know, Zero. You’ll always be my number one,” she whispered.

He smiled softly, his amethyst eyes soft and sleepy. “Yeah?”

“Now, wake up a little. I need your opinion.”

“Whatever it is, you’ll always be beautiful,” he said and tried to flop down on the couch. 

Yuuki poked him in the stomach, whining, “Zero…”

He cracked his eyes open, smiling. “What?”

Nervously, her hands shaking just a little, she pulled open the robe and showed him the lingerie. All traces of sleep left his face in a flash and his eyes widened. She looked beautiful. The lacy lingerie was the color of pale cream, making her skin glow almost white and her hair look like melted chocolate by contrast. Her small breasts filled the cups neatly and barely, her long perfect legs looked miles long, and he didn’t even want to think about the way the panties hugged her crotch. His throat was dry enough.

Yuuki pulled the robe closed. “Zero! Don’t stare,” she protested.

He tore his eyes away. “You look beautiful, Yuuki. Like I said,” he hesitated. “Can I ask?”

“It’s for Kaname,” she whispered. 

“Ah,” was all Zero said. 

Silence stretched between them. Just before Yuuki had started dating Kaname, Zero had confessed his feelings to her, but she couldn’t return them. She had pined after Kaname for years and Zero was her best friend. They had talked and agreed to just be friends—their friendship was too old and too deep to just abandon it. Yuuki was sure it was difficult for Zero to see her with Kaname and to listen to her talk about him, but he did it. He did it all… just for her.

“Zero,” she began.

He held up his hand. “Don’t. It’s okay.”

Yuuki gathered up her clothes and the discarded Victoria’s Secret bag. “I guess… I should get going,” she murmured.

Zero nodded. “Yeah… I need to sleep.”

And so, Yuuki and her bag of tricks left Zero’s apartment. She had a feeling that Zero wasn’t going to be getting much sleep, but she was beautiful in her sneakily purchased lingerie and she was going to surprise Kaname with her booty call. Well… she was going to surprise Kaname in more than one sense of the word.

Since Yuuki had a key, she let herself in and put her bags inside the door. The apartment was quiet and she wondered if she had somehow missed Kaname. She knew he would be home all day though. It was his day off and it was Sunday so there were no classes. Then… where was he?

Then, Yuuki heard it—a woman’s feminine laugh.

Her heart clenched in her chest and she hurried through Kaname’s apartment searching for him. She didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. After all, she was friends with Zero and he was a guy. If Kaname came to Zero’s apartment and heard her and Zero laughing together, she wouldn’t want him to jump to conclusions. It was probably just his friend, Ruka. Yeah, that was it. Just his friend, she told herself.

But she went through the entire apartment, listening to the giggling, without finding anyone until only Kaname’s bedroom was left. Steeling herself, she rapped on the door and then pushed it open. There was a flurry of motion and a lot of naked skin.

“What the—?” Ruka gasped, pulling the sheet up over her naked breasts.

“Yuuki!” Kaname exclaimed, vaulting from the bed. 

For a moment, stunned silence and small panic spread through the room. Kaname looked like he wanted to explain, wanted to make excuses, but what could he say? It was clear what they had been doing or planning to do or had already done. He was hard and wearing a condom and Ruka was naked and in his bed. And there was Yuuki, wearing sexy lingerie and holding a package of condoms. 

Tears welled in her eyes and she turned on her heel and ran from the apartment in only her underwear. Kaname rushed after her, shouting her name, but Yuuki was beyond listening. She only had one thought on her mind—Zero. If she could get to Zero’s apartment, he would wrap her in his arms and this would all just seem like a very bad dream.

It was hard to run with an erection and Kaname only managed to catch up with her at Zero’s door, grabbing her arm.

Yuuki tried to yank away, her face cold with tears. “Let me go!”

“Wait, please! Let me explain,” Kaname protested.

“How could you possibly explain?” she snapped, her knuckles hitting the door in not quite a knock. “Let go of me, Kaname! You’re a—”

Zero pulled open the door and looked them over. Yuuki’s eyes met his and something passed between them in the way only good friends truly could. She choked out his name. In one swift fluid motion, Zero swept Yuuki against his body in one arm and punched Kaname clean in the face with the other. Then, while the cheating pretty boy was still reeling from the blow, Zero pulled Yuuki inside and slammed the door behind them. 

That was it. 

The end of a two year relationship in two minutes.

Zero hadn’t been able to get Yuuki to the couch. She had just collapsed in his arms, sobbing, inside the threshold of his apartment. He didn’t want to sit on the cold floor with her when she was in her underwear so he quickly cradled her in his arms and carried her to the couch. He held her in his lap, drawing a blanket around her partial nudity and sheltering the rest of her body with his arms. He rested his chin on her head and she sobbed into his neck, her lips quivering.

It felt like an eternity that they sat like that, just being together, comforted by each other. Finally, Yuuki sniffled and pulled herself together, but didn’t make a move to leave the safety of Zero’s arms or lap. She remained there, only wrapping her arms around his chest and pulling him even closer to her. He rubbed her back and her short chocolate tresses.

“H-how could he do this to me?” Yuuki hiccupped.

Zero remained silent because he didn’t have a reason. If Yuuki was his, he would never have…

“W-what did I do wrong?” she sobbed.

Zero cradled her closer, breathing softly against the shell of her ear.

“W-why did this happen to me?” she whimpered.

He pressed his lips to her temple tenderly in the softest of comforting kisses between friends.

Yuuki pulled back slightly to look at him, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “Zero?” she asked him.

But he didn’t know what she wanted from him.

“Zero?” she asked again.

“I’m sorry, Yuuki,” he said finally. “You did all this for him and he didn’t even care.”

Her eyes swelled with tears and she drew the blanket tighter around her naked shoulders. “I was so embarrassed when I bought it and now… it just seems so silly.”

Zero leaned his forehead against hers, looking into her eyes.

“Was I really… beautiful, Zero?” she whispered, a single tear rolling down her cheek. 

He brushed it away with the pad of his thumb. “You still are. You always have been,” he whispered to her.

A quiet moment passed between them. Zero’s heart was pounding and Yuuki was so soft and warm in his arms. But she had just broken up with Kaname and not under the best of circumstances… she was vulnerable. And he shouldn’t…

“Yuuki,” he breathed.

She looked into his eyes and he saw such staggering sorrow that it immediately cleared his head of the thoughts he had of her beautiful lingerie hidden beneath the blanket. “Zero,” she whispered. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“What?” he whispered. “No.”

“If you and I were… would you have ever…?”

Zero hugged her. “Never. Never in a million years, Yuuki. I—” but he didn’t say it.

Gratefully, she snuggled deeper into his arms. 

“Yuuki, I… You don’t have to love me, but you did all this and… just let me show you how beautiful you are,” Zero whispered into her hair. “Please…”

He expected her to deny him and instead change back into her jeans and t-shirt. She’d probably stay with him a while longer, cuddled against his side and watching television, but he just had to ask her. He had to. Shockingly, she nodded and he could practically feel her blushing through his shirt. 

“Really?” he whispered because he would never push her into anything.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Zero, please… just…”

He didn’t let her continue and pressed his finger to her lips. “It’s okay,” he whispered, “Yuuki.”

She let the blanket slide from her fingers and he cupped her naked shoulders, brushing his thumbs over the lacy straps of her brassiere. He ran his hands down her arms, his fingertips just barely touching her warm skin. Yuuki shivered as he touched her—it felt as if he was worshipping her body, memorizing every curve and freckle. Then, he trailed his fingertips down her thighs and back up her belly, tenderly exploring every inch of her bared flesh. 

Then, finally, he gingerly cupped her small breasts. His hands seemed so large and strong, but his touch was endlessly gentle. He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples until she relaxed in his arms. He slid the straps down her arms and covered her naked breasts with his hands. His skin was slightly rough from working, but so incredibly warm that she was certain she was going to melt. She purred softly in pleasure deep in her throat as Zero touched her.

He eased her from his lap to lay on the couch, his body hovering over her almost protectively. His shirt just barely touched her stomach, teasingly, tickling. His lips feathered against the side of her throat, kissing and licking gingerly, and he burned a path to her breasts. There, he captured first one nipple and then the next, nipping and sucking lightly. His free hand wandered down her stomach and dipped into the waistband of her lacy frothy panties.

She cried out softly as he gently cupped her heated sex, her back arching to pressed against his body. He pressed his finger to her clit and swirled, teasing and tormenting her, while his mouth followed the path his fingers had made. When he was between her thighs, he gently untied the small bows at her hipbones and peeled the garment away. Yuuki flushed, trying to draw her legs together, but he breathed warm air on her aching snatch and she didn’t care anymore.

Parting her with his thumbs, he drew a long slow lick over her, soaking in the taste and relishing her. He flicked her clit with his tongue, pressing and swirling it with his tongue and teeth. She bucked, her fingers tangling in his silvery hair and she moaned his name. He pushed one finger into her and curled it, stroking her walls expertly until she thought she was going to go insane. With the addition of a second finger and his increasing pace, she squirmed and sobbed in agonizing pleasure. 

Zero sucked her clit fiercely, tapping his tongue against her pearl at random times so that the pleasure flew through her body uninhibited. It wasn’t long before she desperately clung to his silky hair and cried out his name before falling slack, panting, beneath him. He licked his lips, pulled the blanket over her nudity, and nestled against her side on the couch. She curled against him, burying herself into his chest. Her entire body felt flushed and soft.

“W-what was that?” Yuuki whispered to him after a moment.

“What?” he asked.

“That feeling.”

Zero wrinkled his brow. “What? An orgasm?”

Yuuki looked into his eyes, he gaze soft and a little sad. “I’ve never… felt that before.”

A small swell of egotistical pride welled up in Zero’s chest. Kaname might have been Yuuki’s first time, but Zero had give her her first orgasm. “Yeah?” was all he said, not wanting to make a big deal out of it and embarrass her further.

She nodded, grateful for both. Then, she gingerly touched his lower belly. “Zero, don’t you have to…?”

“I’m alright,” he said. “I’ll work it out a little later. Right now, let’s just stay like this for a little longer, okay?”

Yuuki nodded and snuggled deeper into his arms, breathing in the scent of his skin. Zero was bliss, heaven on earth. He was her best friend and she trusted him with everything, even her darkest secrets. Maybe… later, they would have to talk about his confessed feelings again. And maybe… later, something between them would change. Maybe, she had loved him all along.

X X X

I’m trying a few new tactics with these Lemon Series stories. Not all the chapters will be a straight up lemon. Like this one was only Yuuki. What do you think?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	9. Still Doll

Summary: After Yuuki buys a beautiful doll in a peculiar shop, something very strange happens. 

X X X

The shop was nameless and Yuuki Cross discovered it quite by accident. She had been out shopping with friends all day, caught a late movie, had some dinner, and was on her way home. But, somewhere along the line, she had taken a wrong turn. And now, she was standing in front of a shop that had no sign and was lit inside by nothing but candles. The big plate glass window was framed with purple roses and there was the object that had so captivated Yuuki’s attention.

Lying in a small coffin-shaped box lined with the same shade of purple velvet as the roses in the window was a beautiful male porcelain doll. The doll was naked, its bare chest gleaming and all the joints in its knees and wrists exposed. Even so, the doll looked like a work of art. The doll’s eyes were peacefully closed, his face wonderfully handsome, and his hair was the color of spun silver. The doll just lay there in the box and there were many other interesting things in the window so Yuuki was not sure what had drawn her attention to it so swiftly.

As if pulled by an invisible string, Yuuki went to the door and laid her hand on the handle. The knob was ice-cold, making goose bumps break out all over her skin. She shuddered, glanced back at the window, gazed at the doll for a long moment, and then turned away. She didn’t know what had gotten into her today. She was far too old for dolls, even beautiful male dolls. Then why… why was she so captivated by this doll in the velvet-lined box?

She hesitated, her back to the nameless shop. She could walk away, couldn’t she? There was no reason that she needed or wanted that doll and yet… her feet refused to take a step forward. Her body refused to walk away from the shop, away from the window, away from the doll. She glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes immediately going to the beautiful porcelain male doll. He was still just lying there in the box, flickering candlelight playing on the pale planes of his naked chest. In the candlelight, Yuuki could have sworn that she glimpsed movement.

She shook herself. That was silly, wasn’t it? Dolls didn’t move except in horror movies. Although, this entire scene was like something out of a horror movie, like something unreal, like part of a dream. Yuuki’s feet carried her back to the window and she pressed a hand to the glass, staring in at the doll. Then, once again, she moved to the door of the nameless shop, turned the knob, and stepped inside. Immediately, it was like falling into another world.

The shop’s interior was dimly lit by only candles. The counter beside the antique cash register was covered with candles, wax dripping everywhere, the chandelier overhead was also filled with candles inside delicate glass vases. The shelves and tables were draped with dark velvet, the violet roses Yuuki had seen in the window drooped from the rafters and perched in ornate vases all over the room. Spread all over the nameless shop were countless strange artifacts. 

There was a small statuette of nude figures intertwined in love and encased in an ornate cage, strange leather-bound books, and odd blown-glass figurines. There were many other dolls as well—perched on chairs, in stands on shelves, seated along the counter, and one in a beautiful gown was even seated among the candles of a chandelier overhead. Their glass eyes were all open, seeming to gaze directly at Yuuki, flickering in the candlelight. Only the doll Yuuki had seen in the window was lying in a box, only that doll’s eyes were closed.

“Um, hello?” Yuuki called out.

There was movement behind the cash register and Yuuki turned quickly. At first, she didn’t see the strange woman running the shop. Her eyes were instead immediately drawn to the black raven seated on a perch behind the counter. Its beady eyes were fixed on Yuuki and again, it rustled its shining black feathers. Then, it let out a sharp harsh cry that sent chills racing down Yuuki’s spine. She stumbled back a step, her heart pounding.

“May I help you?” a smooth voice spoke. 

As if she materialized from the shadows themselves, Yuuki was suddenly aware of the woman standing beside the raven’s perch. She was beautiful, her rich onyx hair tumbling in waves down her shoulders and over her breasts. She was dressed in sheer black lace, her skin visible beneath the fabric. It would have been lewd if not for the low counter covering her body from the hips down and her long hair hiding her breasts. Her eyes were like the bird’s eyes, bright, beady, focused. 

But Yuuki hardly looked at the woman. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the female doll the woman held in her arms. It was a large doll, nearly the length of her arm, and beautifully crafted just like the male doll in the window. Like the doll in the window, this doll was also nude and the maker had put exquisite detail into the doll’s breasts, even taking the time to paint on rosy nipples and a thatch of hair over the doll’s crotch. Like the woman, the doll had rich curls of ink-black hair and bright black eyes. It was as if the doll had been made to resemble the woman or else… vice versa…

The woman’s fingers moved in a restless path across the doll’s naked body. Her nails teased over the doll’s small breasts, slipped between the doll’s parted legs, stroked, touched, petted. All the touches were as sensual as if the doll was the woman’s lover. Even stranger, the woman didn’t stop touching the doll even as she spoke to Yuuki. It was as if she was unaware of what she was doing, endlessly stroking and caressing the nude porcelain doll. 

“May I help you?” the woman asked again.

Yuuki shook herself, tearing her eyes from the naked female doll to the woman’s beautiful face. Suddenly, as she stared into the woman’s birdlike eyes, she forgot what she had come in for. Something passed from the woman into Yuuki’s mind. The younger girl almost turned to leave, unable to remember what had even brought her into the shop in the first place. Then, toying with her eyes in the flickering candlelight, she thought she saw one of the dolls move and abruptly remembered.

“That doll… the one in the box in the window,” Yuuki said.

“I wouldn’t recommend it for you,” the woman said almost mournfully. 

“Why? Is it expensive?”

The woman shook her head, fingers restlessly stroking the nude doll in her arms, and told Yuuki the price.

“I have that much,” Yuuki said. “I’d like to buy him.” She corrected herself. “It. I’d like to buy it.”

The woman nodded and crossed the shop, the black lace whispering over her body. Yuuki realized she was naked beneath her dress, obscenely so, and quickly looked away. The woman revealed a lid beneath the box, slipped it on, and carried the male doll to the counter. The female doll was in the crook her arm, glass eyes staring at Yuuki, painted-on smile almost cruel. Yuuki shivered. Suddenly, she was very eager to leave the nameless shop. 

Yuuki handed the woman her money and the woman rang her purchase up, sliding the box across the counter towards Yuuki. All the while, she held that naked female doll in her arm, tucked into the crook of her elbow. Yuuki stuttered out a swift thank you, grabbed the box with the male doll inside, and fled the shop. The door slammed behind her harshly and the wind blew one of the candles out. The woman ran her fingers over the cool porcelain planes of the doll’s body and watched Yuuki out the window.

Night was falling.

…

Yuuki Cross arrived at her apartment just as the sun set. She had the bags of purchases she had made while shopping with her friends hanging out of one hand and the large box with the male doll in it under the other. She dumped her purchases on the counter and swiftly carried the doll and its velvet-lined box to her bedroom. She opened the box and gazed at the beautiful doll, her lips curving in a faint smile as she gazed at him. 

She reached into the box and lifted him out. Shockingly, the porcelain was faintly warm in her hands, not cold like she had been expecting. She had expected his eyes to open as she picked him up, like one of those antique sleeping dolls whose eyes closed when they were laid down and opened when they were lifted up. But the doll’s eyes remained closed, his beautiful face smooth and expressionless. Yuuki shifted the doll in her hands, looking for a maker’s mark or something to identify the doll further.  
All she found was a small marking on the bottom of his foot. It read simply, ‘Zero,’ and that was all. 

“Odd,” Yuuki murmured. She set the doll back into his box, grabbed her robe out of the closet, and went into her bathroom. She drew a hot bath, slipped into the warm water, and settled in for a long soak. Yet somehow, she couldn’t relax. Her body felt hot, her skin too tight, her heart was beating hard in her chest, and she was almost short of breath. She got out of the bath, toweled herself off, and pulled her nightdress on over her head. It took her a moment to find her clean panties and then she pulled those on too.

She combed her hair in front of the mirror and noticed that her nipples were standing out, pert and hard against the fabric. Curious since it wasn’t cold, she ran her fingertips over her nipples and was shocked to feel a surge of heat roll through her body and settle in her lower belly. Shaking her head, she made her way back out into her bedroom and noticed the doll just lying there innocently in his box on the bed. Another ripple of heat went through her when she laid eyes on him.

“Zero,” she murmured.

Being in her mid-twenties, Yuuki was no stranger to boyfriends or sex or arousal. She had had plenty of experiences with all three and yet… she hadn’t been thinking any erotic thoughts tonight. So why did her body feel so hot, so small, and so… wet. As she crossed the room to her bed, she unconsciously squeezed her thighs together, rubbing them for friction. A soft sound escaped her mouth as she sat down on the bed. She glanced sidelong at the doll, feeling a fresh wave of arousal sweep through her blood.

She flopped back against the pillows, throwing her arm across her eyes, and tried to pretend her body didn’t feel this way. She squeezed her thighs together, squirmed and thrashed on her sheets, and finally buried her face in her pillow. She mumbled out an intelligible sound and tried to relax. She had no idea what her problem was. Honestly, she wasn’t a horny teenager anymore. Hormones didn’t just strike her down anymore. She was an adult!

But, even so, her hands began to wander. She rolled over onto her back, her legs sliding apart, and the skirt of her nightdress slipping up to her belly. The cool air kissed her drenched panties, sending a thrill of pleasure through her body. She threw her head back against the pillow, her mouth falling open, soft moans escaping. 

First, her hands cupped her breasts, fingertips ghosting over her hard sensitive nipples. She pinched at them, rolling them between her fingers, tugging them, teasing and twisting them. Then, she palmed her entire breast, moaning softly. Her other hand wandered down between her legs and cupped her heated soaking sex. One finger pressed hard against her swollen hungry clit. Her hips arched off the bed, pressing harder into her teasing hand. She moaned, stroking herself.

The image of the woman in the nameless shop stroking the naked contours of the female doll flashed through Yuuki’s mind.

She sat up, a sharp gasp escaping her. The strap of her nightdress slipped down over her shoulder, exposing the top of her creamy breast. She turned her head and stared at the beautiful silver-haired male doll she had bought. Shockingly, his eyes were open now, staring at her… She had never seen such a pretty shade of violet eyes, glass or not. The light danced on his eyes, making it seem like he was looking right at her, right into her. Another wave of heat and pleasure ran through Yuuki.

She hesitated as she reached for the doll. She had no idea what her hands had planned, but she watched as they lifted the male doll into her lap. Zero’s cool porcelain body slumped bonelessly against Yuuki’s breasts and she ran her fingertips gently over the naked planes of his chest. Then, suddenly, she lifted the doll to her lips and kissed his face gently. He felt almost… alive, under her lips… A soft sound escaped her and her tongue darted out, tracing a path down his nude porcelain body. 

Then, she set him in her lap and guided his small doll hand to the aching soaked place between her legs. She had to move him, rubbing his hand against her clit through her panties. It felt so good. She rubbed harder, kneading in small circles. Then, she pushed her panties aside and slipped the cool porcelain arm within herself. Her hips rocked in pleasure, the doll’s jointed limbs clattering as he was jostled out of her lap. She thrust the doll’s arm within herself, moaning.

“Ah, Zero,” she gasped. 

Then, a sudden strangeness happened. There wasn’t any sort of magical flash of light not was the change incredibly sudden. Yuuki was thrusting the doll’s arm within her soaking snatch and it suddenly felt larger, thicker, warmer. She imagined she felt the fingers of the doll’s hand twitch and awaken, stroking her insides. 

She moaned again, “Ah, Zero.”

And the change came about a little quicker. Now, she was certain the weight of the doll’s body beside her was growing larger, warmer. The thin hand and arm inside her thickened and slipped out until only fingers remained inside. Then, Yuuki rolled over, her hips rocking against the hand that she no longer had to guide. 

“Ah, ah, Z-Zero.”

Her arms wrapped around something large, man-sized rather than doll-sized, and definitely moving. Her eyes slid open and she stared into the face of the porcelain doll she had bought. He was just as beautiful as he had been in the shop’s window. His face was perfect, features aristocratic and stunning, his eyes the same beautiful shape of amethyst, his lips sculpted, and his silvery hair tumbling across his forehead in wisps and curls. 

Only, he was expressionless, his mouth closed, barely blinking—just like a doll.

But between her legs, his fingers were more alive than anything.

Yuuki gasped out, “Z-Zero.”

Her nails raked down his chest, feeling the warm flesh beneath her fingertips. With eagerness she had never felt with one of her boyfriends, she ran her hand down his back and cupped his ass. The globe was perfect, soft in her hands, her nails raking gingerly. Then, she reached around the front of him and gripped his shaft. It was large, thick, bigger than any of her other boyfriends. For a moment, she panicked. How would that ever fit inside her?

Then, his cool thumb flicked her clit and she forgot all her cares and concerns. She moaned, clinging to him with her free arm and squeezing his cock hard with her other hand. She ground against him, spreading her legs wider to give him more access, and moaned his name.

“Zero!”

He pushed her down flat on her back and rose above her. She automatically spread her legs, welcoming him between them, and felt the cool thick shaft of him bump her core. Her hands traveled down his perfect porcelain chest and down his back, gripping the perfection of his ass again, and pulled him forward against her. 

His face was still expressionless as he removed his long fingers from her core and licked them. Then, he opened up the flower of her sex, positioned his large shaft at her entrance, and began to push into her. Yuuki groaned in pain and pleasure as the line blurred. Zero slipped deeper into her and the head of his cock finally pushed hard against the entrance to her womb. She tipped her head back, moaning loudly, chocolate tresses fanning on the creamy pillow.

Sheathed inside her, he began to move. His thrusts were hard, powerful, the muscles of his back arching beneath Yuuki’s grasping hands. She gasped, her legs wrapping tight around his narrow hips. Her fingers tangled desperately in his silvery hair and she pulled his head to hers, capturing his lips in a kiss. Beneath her mouth, his lips were unmoving, still, unresponsive. 

Doll-like.

Yuuki whimpered, her hot tongue tracing the seam of his lips encouragingly. She tried to get him to open his mouth, but he just wouldn’t. Instead, she moved her lips to his neck and began to suck and kiss eagerly, her tongue darting out to lick his salty skin each time she moaned. 

Zero’s hips thrust hard and strong and deep, faster and faster. He supported himself on his hands, staring blankly into her face. The only movement, the only reaction, coming from his body was the endless slam of his large shaft within her. But, god, Yuuki had never had a lover quite like this. 

Sweat broke out all over her pale skin, her breath came shallower and shorter, gasping. She was right on the edge of her orgasm, something none of her male lovers had ever been able to bring her. As if sensing it, Zero’s cool hand ghosted down her body to the place where they were joined. Almost painfully, he pinched her clit, stroking her hard and fast.

Yuuki’s orgasm hit her like a bullet in the back, hard and sudden. “Ah! Zero!” she screamed, clutching him desperately as she rode out her orgasm. Within her, his still-hard shaft continued to pound, making her orgasm longer and more powerful. It was unbelievable. There was no way he could have this much stamina—to still be so hard.

Then, he leaned down and his lips parted.

Yuuki opened her mouth, her eyes sliding closed in anticipation.

Zero’s lips touched hers, warm and awakening.

She moaned his name against his lips.

Wider, his mouth opened as if to devour her. Her tongue touched his, danced, tangled.

Then, it was all over.

The lid fell back onto the velvet-lined coffin-like box.

…

A young man with dark hair and bright mahogany eyes was on his way home from work, having just transferred there from another city. It was late, dark, and he had gotten a little turned around on the streets of this new city. He was walking down an alley when he saw the gleam of lights. Surprised anything was open this late and hoping to ask for directions, he hurried towards the flickering light.

The shop was nameless with a wide plate-glass window. Inside, the sill was filled with an array of beautiful and strange things. Purple roses framed the window, candles flickered inside, and he thought for sure he glimpsed a black raven on a perch. But, his attention was immediately captivated by something in the window.

It was a doll.

She was lying in a small velvet-lined box, nude, ornately crafted so that the joints of her wrists and knees and hips were visible. The beautiful female doll was a work of art. Exquisite detail was put into her every curve and feature. Her breasts were wonderfully painted with pink nipples, a thatch of chocolate hair guarding the apex of her thighs, and her lips were rose-red. Her hair was tumbling chocolate curls, her skin was like ivory, and her eyes were closed peacefully as if she was sleeping.

She was so beautiful, even for a doll—more beautiful than a human.

The young man was captivated, unable to look away from her. As if his legs were separate from the rest of him, he went to the shop’s door though he wasn’t sure why. He was far too old for dolls and he was not a girl, either. He hesitated a moment, hand on the knob, and then he entered inside. 

X X X

I love how this came out. It’s so creepy and sexy. (At the end, the young man was supposed to be Kaname and Yuuki has been turned into a doll in Zero’s place.)

Questions, comments, concerns?

REVIEW!


	10. A Love of Fine Things

Okay, so I’m working hard to update Deafening Silence, but the chapter is slow in coming. I will get it up sometime with week.

Summary: Zero never really liked things of beauty until the night Yuuki showed him the Chairman’s new piano.

X X X

Kaien Cross had always been called the ‘vampire without fangs,’ but he had abandoned that ruthlessness now that he ran a school dedicated to uniting the vampire and human races under a white flag of peace. Now, the only time he acted as a merciless vampire was in defense of his so-called cute students. And yet… there was one other thing about him that made him like a vampire, something no one chose to speak of for fear that the pitiless ‘vampire without fangs’ would return to silence them. But, Kaien Cross, like most eternal vampires, had a love of fine things.

It was apparent in his every action and in everything he happened to touch or decorate. 

Even the uniforms of Cross Academy were finer and more delicate than the uniform of any other school. With the girls’ uniforms, the pleated skirts had a slip of silk beneath them, the blouses’ sleeve were trimmed with a fringe of fine lace, and the ribbon-like ties were made of silk. Kaien even gifted each female student with a choker bearing the crest of the school in silver. With the boys’ uniforms, though less fine than the girls’, they had silver rose-shaped cufflinks and a silver crest just like the girls that they wore over their ties. Everything was lovely, just like things had been centuries ago.

Kiryuu Zero, though more vampire than Cross Kaien, had no appreciation for any of this. In fact, he was rather sick of it all.

Yuuki was smoothing out her skirt, standing beside him as his ever-present ally. She was happy, her bracelet jingling softly as she moved, and she was chattering on about the upcoming dance that would allow the Day and Night classes to mix and mingle. Zero, if possible, was even more unhappy about the upcoming dance than he was all the lavishness that surrounded him, constantly reminding him of his forced blood-sucking state. He growled to himself.

“Zero?” Yuuki asked, stepping carefully over a mess of packing peanuts in the hallway, littering the fine Persian rug. “What’s wrong?”

“What the hell has the chairman bought now?” he snarled out.

Yuuki elbowed him, smiling. “Be nice!” she teased. “I like it.”

“Of course you do,” he muttered. “You’re a girl.”

Yuuki rapped her knuckles on his ribs. “Oh, Zero, come on. I think it’s so nice. The chairman wants to make the school like an old vampire mansion, you know, to make everyone feel more comfortable,” she explained to him.

But Zero was passed listening. He tugged unhappily at his tie, shedding the decorative crest and shoving it into his pocket.

Yuuki sighed, watching him. Then, she suddenly smiled and grabbed his hand, tugging on it lightly. “Come here, Zero,” she said eagerly. “I want to show you something.”

He wanted to protest, to growl out that they were supposed to be doing their rounds to make sure the school was safe and secure for the night, but Yuuki’s expression was so darling and it just wasn’t in Zero to be able to deny her anything. He might have had the courage to refuse even the pureblood prince, going against even his bloodlust, but he could not deny Yuuki. If she asked him for the moon, he would try to get it for her and probably feel guilty when he found that he couldn’t.

“What?” he snapped, managing to salvage some of his pride.

Yuuki merely grinned at him, knowing she had him wrapped around her finger, but had the decency not to rub it in. Still holding his hand, she led him down the hallway, stepping over packing peanuts and other boxes. (Kaien had just bought a new shipment of vases, tapestries, and oil paintings to decorate the school with.) Then, Yuuki reached her destination—the school music room—and pushed the door open with a final smile over her shoulder at Zero.

There, glowing in the moonlight, was a glossy Broadwood and Sons grand piano. It was unbelievably stunning, a fine mixture of pale ivory and rich ebony woods. The legs and music stand were ornately carved, polished to a shine. The top and sides were all inlaid with different colored woods, creating lovely bouquets of flowers and even a few intricate butterflies. The keys were ivory, glimmering, and the bench was upholstered with rich black velvet and embroidered with the same floral pattern as the piano. (1)

Despite himself, Zero let out a small gasp.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Yuuki asked.

He nodded despite himself and then felt a hot flush creeping up his neck. For all his posturing, he was a vampire, after all, and hunters knew the flourish of vampire society almost as well as vampires did. There was no denying that this piano was more than just beautiful. It was a work of art, something fit for royalty.

“It’s from 1851,” Yuuki told Zero, crossing the small room to the piano. She ran her fingertips over the glossy moldings and carved ivory flowers. “I heard from the chairman that Queen Victoria has one just like it in Buckingham Palace.”

Zero came to join her. “I’d believe that,” he said breathlessly.

Yuuki slid him a knowing look, her lips quirking.

Zero cleared his throat. “I mean, royalty always has to spend their people’s taxes on frivolous things, just like vampires,” he hissed.

Yuuki laughed in earnest, the sound like a babbling brook or the tinkling of bells. It warmed Zero’s cold plain heart to hear something so sweet. Also, he was immeasurably happy that Yuuki could still be happy around him, despite what he had done to her… was still doing to her pale creamy throat… Bruises and wounds marked that thin smooth flesh. Shame welled up in his chest, choking him, and he abruptly turned away from Yuuki and the beautiful piano. He didn’t deserve to look at either such beautiful things.

Yuuki’s fingers closed around his elbow. “Zero,” she said pleadingly.

He didn’t speak. He wasn’t able to.

“Come on, please,” she whispered, tugging on his arm. “Please, Zero.”

Even though he didn’t know what she wanted, he still wasn’t able to resist her. With a heavy sigh, he allowed Yuuki to pull him back into the music room and lead him back to the lovely piano. She sat down on the bench, tried to get him to sit beside her, but gave up when he stonily refused. Instead, far too trusting for her own good, she put her back to him—him, the vampire who had bitten her without restraint and drained her until she could hardly stand. He nearly turned away again, but Yuuki had settled her fingers on the stunning ivory keys and begun to play.

She wasn’t very good and was in fact playing ‘Mary had a little lamb,’ but Zero stood listening, captivated as if she was playing a complicated piece by Mozart. Because he was so enraptured, Yuuki just continued to play, beginner’s piece after beginner’s piece until she was finally reduced to ‘chopsticks.’

“Can you play, Zero?” she asked softly, her fingers going still.

“No,” he said softly, leaning down to rest his chin on the top of her head.

Yuuki stilled, the muscles in her back tensing and her heart beginning to race. Zero’s body was so warm, pressed so flush against her back, his arms on either side of her thin body even though he wasn’t holding her, she still felt unbelievably sheltered. Even though Zero was a vampire and far more dangerous to her than the incredibly-controlled Kaname, she still felt safe with him. In fact, when she was with Kaname, she was slightly afraid, but with Zero—when she should have been afraid—she just wasn’t. Zero inhaled a tremulous breath, shuddering against Yuuki’s back.

“Yuuki,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with need.

She angled her head. “Go ahead, Zero,” she murmured.

He trembled, his arms wrapping around her tightly, encasing her against him. His lips feathered against the hair lying on her pale neck in an almost kiss, brushing the chocolate strands away, and then she felt the scrape of his fangs on her pale skin.

“Wait,” Yuuki gasped.

For a moment, she feared Zero wouldn’t be able too. His mouth pressed eagerly against her throat, fangs scraping hard, but didn’t break the skin. With an incredible burst of willpower, he managed to pull away from her. His eyes glowed with bloodlust.

“W-what?” Zero whispered, his voice garbled by his long fangs.

“Sit here, beside me,” Yuuki whispered, patting the piano bench.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because,” she murmured, “I… I don’t want you to… from behind…”

Guilt flashed through Zero’s face, momentarily pushing aside the bloodlust in his eyes. But he did as Yuuki asked—he could never deny her. He sat on the bench beside her, straddling the bench so that he could face her fully. Oddly enough, Yuuki shifted position as well, straddling the bench just as Zero was, but she didn’t stop there. She scooted forward, a small blush painting her cheeks, and crawled into his lap, wrapping her legs around his hips. Her skirt left her exposed and he could feel the heat of her core radiating against him. Zero shuddered, a different sort of lust growing in his violet eyes.

“Yuuki,” he groaned.

“I… I trust you, Zero,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around him and snuggling against his chest.

Despite himself, he gathered her in his arms, squeezing her close. “Yuuki, you’re so… so stupid,” he whispered.

She laughed softly. “I know, but I… I know you won’t hurt me. I think I…” she hesitated, “I love you,” she confessed.

A moment of silence spread thickly between them. Yuuki looked away, her heart pounding. She had never thought that her confession might lead her to rejection. She and Zero were so close, after all, and she had thought he might… love her, too. After all, he always held her so gently when he took her blood and then there was that time he had woken from a nightmare and nearly kissed her. She had just assumed that he… that he returned her feelings. Now, a hot and nervous bubble of shame welled up in her chest.

“I—” she began, but Zero cut her off.

He had never been good with words, especially when Yuuki was concerned, so he always portrayed how he felt for her with actions. The way he held her when he drank her precious lifeblood, how he never left her side and would give her his entire life if she desired it, and he was just… he was hers. So, now, rather than risk speaking, he merely cupped her face in his hands and gently pressed his lips to hers. 

Yuuki gasped softly, her fingers knotting in his shirt.

For a moment, Zero had the irrational fear that even though she had just confessed that she loved him, she would push him away. But Yuuki’s hesitation lasted only a moment. Then, she melted into him like chocolate, sweet and delightfully responsive. Her lips opened like the petals of a flower, welcoming him, and his tongue darted into her mouth eagerly. She returned his passion, her tongue dancing with his. Then, Zero suddenly tasted her blood and Yuuki pulled back with a gasp, her fingers going to her lips.

Zero realized that his fangs had pricked her. Though his love for her had overwhelmed the bloodlust in his mind, his body hadn’t yet released it. His fangs were still extended, thirsting for fresh blood, for Yuuki’s blood. She probed the small wound on her lip, wincing.

“Yuuki, I—”

Now, she cut him off. “You need blood,” she murmured. Then, she swept her chocolate tresses off her shoulder, unbuttoned the first few buttons of her silken blouse, and exposed her throat to him with such a level of trust that it made his heart melt. “Here, drink.”

Zero lowered his lips to her throat, kissing her pulse gently. Then, his hot tongue gently lavished attention on her soft skin, teasing her as she shivered in pleasure in his arms. His fangs pressed over the thin skin gently, warning her of the pain to come. She gripped his head, her fingers tangling in his smooth silver hair, tensing. 

Zero’s throat was tight. He didn’t want to hurt her… but, he needed her blood. He was an animal, nothing like a beautiful pureblood vampire who loved all fine things. Not for the first time, he wondered if she should be at Kaname’s side. Kaname would never harm her, not the way Zero did. Zero was just a beast, thirsty and about to devour her. He hesitated far longer than he usually did.

Yuuki stroked the nape of his neck with her fingertips. “Go ahead, Zero,” she whispered.

Trembling in her arms, he broke her skin and began to drink from her. He forced himself to go slow, letting the blood flow out rather than painfully sucking the wound. Yuuki shuddered, clinging to him, but she was not afraid. Yes, being bitten hurt, but it was all made better by being held in Zero’s arms so gently. She shuddered again, but in faint pleasure. 

It wasn’t often that Yuuki had impure thoughts about anyone, even Kaname who she had loved for so long. Lately, since Zero had begun to fill her every waking thoughts, she had begun to think about him—about his pale ivory skin, about his soft silver hair, about those beautiful amethyst eyes… and yet, she had never once thought about giving herself to him.

Until now.

She was suddenly aware that her heated sex was resting just above Zero’s crotch, her legs wrapped around his waist, straddling him. It would be so easy to just roll her hips and grind down against him, to truly feel him against her. All that was between her body and his was her cotton panties, his pants, and boxers. A tremor of heat and friction ran through her. 

She was increasingly aware of his mouth, of his lips, and his tongue on her skin. His feeding was especially gentle, almost sensual, her body cradled in his strong arms. She melted into his chest, her fingers tangled in the soft hairs at the back of his neck, pulling him closer to her. It felt like a long time that they were entwined like that, within each other, unaware of the rest of the world. But Zero eventually pulled a away and Yuuki realized that not much time must have passed at all because she didn’t feel lightheaded from blood loss in the least.

“Zero, don’t you need more—”

He cut her off, his lips eagerly pressing to the corner of her mouth. Though her blood tasted delicious to him, he was sure she didn’t wish to taste it. Yuuki gasped, clutching him, as his hot mouth caressed her cheek and down her throat, pausing to lightly suck her collarbone. She rocked her hips down on him, feeling his arousal rise up to meet her, and a flush of heat and wetness rushed to her core. She made a soft sound that might have been his name and he echoed it.

They were more than best friends and knew everything about each other. They had no secrets and each quickly set to work helping the other undress. 

Years of being with Yuuki in the bathroom, watching her grow from training bras to a real bra, gave Zero the knowledge he needed. He slid her blouse from her shoulders, caressing her soft skin, and then unfastened her bra. She was a little shy since she usually put her back to Zero when she was braless, but he guided her hands aside. His lips pressed to the pulse of blood just above her breast, his rough hunter’s hands palming her small orbs.

She tipped her head back, moaning softly, as he ran his palms over her pert nipples. Then, she pushed his jacket from his shoulders and quickly unbuttoned his shirt. She tossed it aside, running her hands down the muscles she had always appreciated from afar. His skin was like porcelain, so pale and virtually hairless. What chest hair he did have was silver-white and blended in with his pale skin. Yuuki pressed her lips into the hollow of his throat, feeling goose bumps rise as she touched him.

He cupped her back, lifting her gently so that his fingers could lower the zipper of her skirt, but their position didn’t allow for more than that. Yuuki tried to climb off of him, but Zero was unwilling to put even an inch of space between their bare skin. He lifted her in his arms, cradling her with her legs wrapped tightly around his hips, and laid her down on top of the beautiful piano. Yuuki hissed softly as the cool wood touched her heated flesh, but Zero quickly pressed his hot naked chest to hers.

Now, her legs dropping from around his hips, he could finish undressing her. He tugged down her skirt and panties, laying them aside. Yuuki sat up and helped him unfasten his belt and the buttons of his trousers. He stepped out of his clothes and Yuuki stared for a moment, shocked. 

Zero pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “If you don’t want to,” he began.

She shook her head. “No, I want to,” she assured him. Then, she looked up into his face, a pink blush coloring her cheeks. “I want you, Zero. I love you.”

He smiled softly, a hint of his fangs peeking from between his lips. When he kissed her deeply, Yuuki didn’t even taste her own blood on his mouth. She merely tasted Zero’s love and passion, his desire for her, and his very heart and soul. She hoped she was pouring just as much emotion into him as he was to her.

Then, she felt his smooth erection bump against her soaking entrance and gasped softly. Her thighs squeezed his hips, trembling though, from desire and arousal. He leaned back slightly, looking into her face for any sign that she didn’t want this. All he saw was the most beautiful desire and love in her face, her chocolate tresses spread out on the stunning surface of the piano. Suddenly, Zero had a taste for fine things… like Yuuki. He kissed her lips softly and then thrust inside her. 

She yelped faintly, her nails raking his pale back, but he was still, waiting for her to adjust to his size. He caught the faint scent of virginal blood and kissed her again, his tongue delving in and drinking away her pain. Then, she responded eagerly, lifting her hips against his. 

He began to move within her, thrusting deep and slow. Yuuki threw her head back, her left arm falling from Zero’s shoulder and landing on the keys of the beautiful piano. Lovely and discordant music filled the room, mingling with the sweet mewls and moans Yuuki couldn’t hold back. She whispered his name, her cheeks flushed.

And Zero reached his limit. He spilled inside her, warm and wet.

She gasped softly, her body going limp beneath him.

Silence spread between the, the final dissonant notes of the piano fading.

“Yuuki,” Zero began. “If you weren’t pleased, I’m sorry…”

She smiled at him, lifting a hand to stroke his face. “Zero, I love you,” she whispered. “And you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen…”

Zero pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist when she touched him. “Thanks for showing me the piano, Yuuki,” he murmured. “It’s truly beautiful.”

She smiled, blushing as if knowing what cliché thing he was going to say next. 

“But not nearly as beautiful as you.”

X X X

(1) Here’s a website where you can find the beautiful piano I described. Just remove the spaces: w w w . palace pianos . c o m /portal/grand-pianoforte/19th-century-pianoforte/51-broadwood_sons_grand_pianoforte-1844 . h t m l

Questions, comments, concerns?

Review!


	11. Of Primroses and Bonfires

For TaleWeaver.

 **Summary:** As the Pure Blood Princess, Yuuki has to give up her virginity in a sacred ritual, but she has someone special in mind...

X X X

It always started with a festival of primroses and bonfires. Yuuki felt that it was very similar to planting forget-me-nots in graveyards. The flowers and smells of roasting meat would disguise the decay that ran beneath the tradition. At least the festivities would distract the humans from the barbaric vampire traditions. She had a feeling that the humans wouldn’t be so willing to allow her uncle to rule if they knew the truth of the time-honored event. 

For what felt like the thousandth time, she wished she didn’t have to be a part of this, but fate had already deigned that she was not only involved but she was the main attraction. As the king’s niece, she would be ‘given’ to the strongest young vampire. It didn’t matter that it was against her will. No, as the princess, she had no choice but to offer herself in the traditional rites. She glowered at the entourage, letting her fangs slide out over her painted lips, but since her attendants were vampires as well they didn’t care.

One of the elderly women washing her long bare legs with rosewater gave her a little pinch and Yuuki withdrew her snarling fangs. She continued to glare, but no longer outwardly betrayed her distaste for the ceremony. If her uncle found out how rebellious she was being, he would lock her away and make her drink only animal blood until she had repented. She watched the women wash her, inspecting her body for flaws or signs of use. The rite would mean nothing if she wasn’t a virgin.

A hot flush crept up Yuuki’s neck and face as one of the women spread her legs and examined her very core. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to squeeze her legs closed and kick the woman away. When her cool fingers cupped Yuuki’s sex and then washed it gently, Yuuki nearly screamed. How dare her uncle let her be touched like this? How dare he let her be bartered away like a commodity just so he could swear the strongest young vampire into their clan?

The old woman gave her thigh another pinch and Yuuki whipped her head around to glare at her. Without looking at Yuuki, the woman selected a pot of dark paint from the table and began to paint Yuuki’s alabaster skin with the fertility symbols. The paint itched as it dried, but Yuuki didn’t want to scratch at it and risk having to go through this entire process again. She sat quietly, naked, as her entire body was painted. The brush tickled as it ran over her skin and she squirmed uncomfortably on the small stool.

The woman pinched her thigh again and Yuuki resisted the urge to snap that she would wind up with a bruise. She fidgeted as her nipples were painted and then her collarbones and throat. She had been told that the paint was made to taste good so that it would encourage foreplay. Honestly, Yuuki just wanted all of this to be over as soon as possible. She had already given up hope that she would enjoy this. Finally, the entourage of women finished painting her body.

Yuuki was allowed to dress in a pale yellow gown made of sheer silk. It would have been pretty if not for the sheerness of the material and the slits that ran all the way to her hips, exposing her legs completely. Though it was long, it was open in the back so that it could be slid off easily and the neckline was so deep that she may as well have been naked. A new flush of embarrassment and anger rushed into Yuuki’s pale face, but she fought back the urge to fight this.

A heavy cloak of fur was draped over her shoulders, followed by the wreath of yellow primroses. Yuuki drew it tightly around herself, doing the best she could to cover her body. Thankfully, this was what the cloak was designed for and it was easy to hide within it. Barefoot, the women led her out of the small tent where she had been prepared for the festivities. They boarded a small boat together and the four female vampires rowed across the lake to the roaring bonfires on the other side. 

Yuuki was helped from the boat by the women and led between the two bonfires. The grass was springy and warm beneath her feet. The entire vampire community had arrived for the event and they stood in long aisles beside the bonfires. Yuuki was led down the center, a prize to be won. 

On the high knoll above the raging fires and the watching eyes stood the competitors. The strongest young vampire would win Yuuki’s body and become her uncle’s knight. Yuuki had told herself that she wasn’t going to look up at the challengers, but her eyes were drawn there by a small flash of white. Most of the contenders were wearing black and crowns of deer antlers along with leather masks to hide their identities from her. 

But one of them was just too easily recognized. 

Yuuki knew him well and a little bubble of hope welled in her heart. ‘Yes,’ she thought, ‘Let him win me. Please, let him win.’ 

Raising her chin proudly, Yuuki continued down the aisle of grass to the cavern where the ceremony took place each and every year. Torches were lit inside the cave and there was a large round bed made up with furs and pillows. A small jug of water rested on the roughhewn table with a brass goblet. The cavern was ageless, timeless, and Yuuki suddenly felt the weight of what was about to happen to her.

Her courage and the small feeling of hope that had welled in her chest diminished. 

The vampire women removed her fur cloak, folding it neatly between themselves. In only her yellow shift, Yuuki stood in the warm air of the cavern and shivered nervously. Two of the woman helped her into the bed and drew a thick fur blanket over her body. Yuuki clutched the soft fur in her fingers nervously, staring at them pleadingly. The oldest woman dipped her head to Yuuki slightly in reverence and led the others out of the grotto.

Silence reigned in the cavern, broken only by the soft crackle and pop of the torches. 

In the distance, Yuuki could hear her uncle’s voice as he explained the rules. God, his voice was loud and his words sent a shiver down her spine. “Whoever kills the stag will win my niece and my favor!” he was shouting. “Now, go!”

A great cheer went up and Yuuki could imagine the eager young males leaping into the woods to hunt the stag that her uncle had prepared her freed just for this occasion. She shuddered, once again praying that her favorite would win and come to this horrible cave for her.

The vampires began to chant and sing, celebrating with wine and blood and roasted meat. She knew they would begin playing with fire, dancing among the flames and leaping over them. The singing would cover the sounds of Yuuki’s deflowering, in case she screamed of cried, and another shiver went through her body.

She tightened her grip on the fur coverlet, pulling it closer to her chin, trembling. A small eternity seemed to pass, but she supposed it was only a few minutes in reality. Vampire were fast and a lone deer was really no match for them. Sure enough, she heard footsteps outside the cavern.

Tensing, she stared through the flickering firelight at the mouth of the care, waiting with terrified bated breath. Who would appear at the threshold? Her love or a rapist? Her heart began to hammer against the cage of her rib, battering itself to pieces. And then, he appeared.

A breath of relief rushed out of Yuuki’s lungs.

God, mask or no, she would know that shock of pale silver hair anywhere. As if his hair wasn’t enough of a give-away, she could see his bright amethyst eyes through the slit in his mask. He was splattered with fresh blood, his teeth and lips stained. He licked his lips nervously when he saw her, but Yuuki was overjoyed to see him.

“Zero,” she breathed out.

He paused, hand resting on the blade he had used to kill the stag. “How did you know it was me?”

Yuuki laughed hoarsely. “As if I wouldn’t recognize you,” she said. “Take off that mask.”

He did so easily, untying the straps and setting it aside. “Are you… disappointed… that it’s me?”

“Are you kidding?” she said with a laugh. 

Then, she threw back the blanket of fur and exposed the sheer yellow dress she wore. She opened her arms to him and he came forward eagerly, falling into her embrace. He smelled of the hunt and smoke and she breathed him in deeply. Beneath the smell of his accursed ritual, he smelled like lavender and something purely him. 

“I’ve been lying here,” she said, “praying that it would be you.”

Zero chuckled softly, relieved beyond words. He had fought hard to keep the other vampires off the stag and kill it himself. He couldn’t bear the thought of Yuuki being with anyone other than him. Even so, some small part of him feared that she wouldn’t want to be with him. 

Yuuki cupped his face and pulled his lips to hers. Zero fell into her kiss like a drowning man clinging to a piece of wreckage. Her mouth tasted sweet, painted with fertility signs just like the rest of her beautiful body. He held her close, feeling the heat of her body through the thin silk of her shift. The material slid away beneath his hands easily and he found himself touching her naked skin. 

Yuuki moaned slightly and Zero drew back to look into her face. Her eyes were closed in bliss, her lips slightly parted, and he couldn’t resist kissing her. His tongue slid into her mouth, tasting her sweetness. She fell back against the mound of pillows, pulling Zero down against her breasts. The top of her shift slid further down her shoulders, exposing her breasts.

Zero lowered his mouth to her skin, pressing kisses all along the swell of her breasts. He closed his lips softly over her nipple and she moaned as she threaded her fingers through his silver hair and held him closer. Her back arched, pressing her body full against him, and then she was tugging at his black clothing. 

Zero pulled himself away from her long enough to shed his blood-spattered gear and Yuuki tore her shift off, hurling it away. Naked, they pressed together hungrily. Yuuki had always wanted to be with him, but knowing she would someday have to give her virginity to this horrible rite had prevented them from ever being together. This was a dream come true.

She clutched him close, hungrily, panting. Her fangs stretched out over her full red lips, her eyes became the color of blood, and her long dark hair was splayed around her head like a silken fan. Her porcelain skin was painted with those dark blue fertility marks, her breasts heaved as she breathed, and the insides of her thigh glistened with want. Zero didn’t think he had ever seen her so beautiful.

He kissed her. Her legs wrapped tightly around his lean hips, pulling him flush against her naked core. He groaned, feeling the wet heat of her against his sensitive flesh. Yuuki clung to him, her nails raking his back. Hearing her unspoken plea, he guided himself to her entrance and slid slowly into her.

She cried out sharply as her maiden barrier gave way. She clutched his shoulders, her nails carving crescents into his skin and drawing blood. Hungrily, she licked his blood away and he buried his nose into her throat while her muscles convulsed around him. After a moment, she nodded into his shoulder and her tight grip loosened.

“Are you okay?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” she breathed out. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this with you.”

Zero smiled softly and kissed her.

Yuuki moaned as he began to move within her. She could feel the power of his body, the strength that had allowed him to win out over all others and kill the stag, and yet… Zero’s body was thin like her own with pale skin and thin fingers. What had given him the strength to win wasn’t strength itself… it was his love for her.

Yuuki’s heart swelled, her body pulled to the brink by emotion alone. When Zero pressed his fingertips to her pearl, it was easy for her to reach the peak of pleasure. She threw her head back into the pillows, a curtain of silken hair following the motion. 

“Zero!” she screamed.

He thrust deeply into her, his thrusts growing erratic as he reached his limit. Suddenly, she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him close. His lips were pressed to the pulse of her throat and his fangs grew out, scraping against the tender skin. Usually, it would be a crime to drink her pure blood, but now that they were bound together…

“Drink,” Yuuki panted.

Zero’s teeth broke through her skin and her hot blood rushed into his mouth. Her emotions filled him and he felt her relief, her happiness, and her love. The taste of her emotions pulled him quickly over the edge and he spilled hot within her. As he came, Yuuki bit into his shoulder and drank his blood eagerly. 

Zero groaned her name, clutching her tight to his naked chest.

She moaned softly, licking her lips.

Together, they collapsed in the bed and Zero drew the fur up around them. He held her in his arms, cradling her close and precious against his side. Yuuki melted into his familiar embrace. What had started off with primroses and bonfires was now a dream come true. Now, she could be with the one she wanted. She closed her eyes, nestled deeper against Zero’s side, and began to drift off to sleep.

Zero’s voice pulled her from dreamland. “Your uncle is going to hate this,” he murmured.

Yuuki squeezed him closer. “It’s too late now,” she retorted. “You won the rite, fair and square. It’s not like he can try again. I’m bonded to you now.”

Zero smiled, resting his cheek against her hair. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“I was hoping it would be you. The moment I saw you on the hill, I was praying that it would be you,” Yuuki whispered sleepily. The stress and exhaustion was finally catching up with her. Safe in Zero’s arms, she could finally relax and give into the siren call of sleep. “I… I love you, Zero…”

“I love you too, Yuuki,” he murmured, but she was already sound asleep. He tucked a primrose behind her ear and kissed her lips gently.

X X X

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Review!


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